


The Devil's Feast

by ChemicalOrgasm



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Creepy, Dark Magic, Depictions of Death, Fear, Five-Year Mission, Ghosts, Gore, Happy Ending, Haunted Mansion Mystery, Haunting, Horror, Jump Scares, Lore - Freeform, M/M, Made-up Race/Circumstances, Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Nightmares, Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Severe weather, Snow, Supernatural - Freeform, Superstition, Swearing, Thriller, Witchcraft, diplomatic mission, implied established relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:42:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8416081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChemicalOrgasm/pseuds/ChemicalOrgasm
Summary: The Cenlarians of Cenlar IV are not a common people; superstitious and ritualistic by nature, they sit upon an ore and mineral rich planet situated just North of the Neutral Zone with Romulan Space. Captain Kirk and First Officer Spock embark on a hair-raising endeavor to establish a treaty with the Cenlarian Tribes, but along the way, they may discover more than they had bargained for...





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and Happy Halloween! If you're a returning reader of mine, I want to assure you that I will be continuing my _'Unexpected'_ Series, this was simply a short novella I turned out on an inspired whim. After all, tis the season!  
>  If you are just discovering my works, I hope you enjoy the story! 
> 
> As always, I owe my thanks to my very own beta reader, [NWKate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NWKate/pseuds/NWKate). This fic wouldn't have been done in time without her help! 
> 
> If you're into spooky music, feel free to listen to this [_playlist_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8zO6_OhNy8&list=PLjO7Tb3U8GGeLV7PlWsVwlepvhu0JPq7x) while you read the fic. 
> 
> Also, if you have any spooky or creepy, or even just otherwise unexplained scary things you've experienced in your life, feel free to drop me a comment and tell me about it! I love hearing about that kind of thing, it interests me, especially around Halloween. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy, maybe even get a little spooked!

Jim Kirk, by default, did not enjoy diplomatic functions. The meetings were more often than not stuffy, uncomfortable, long, and tedious, and this one was no different. This time, though, a new element was being added to the mix, and Jim Kirk would be lying if he didn't say the people of Cenlar IV were not a little creepy.

The Federation had sent a distressingly thin report to the Enterprise three weeks ago about the Cenlarian people based upon the efforts of a single landing party and their first contact experiences with the intelligent beings of the planet. The atmosphere was surprisingly similar to Earth's, with the same range in temperatures across longitudes and latitudes, and though they hung in a more distant orbit from their bright star, the climate tended to the more temperate but at the poles downright frigid.

It wasn't the climate that made them uneasy when their small landing party had beamed down into a quiet public square, but rather the eeriness of everything around them. It was the winter cycle in this region of the planet, and snow obscured the pavement, wet and heavy. The buildings were all straight and stacked tall, built of white and grey stones and bricks. 

The people themselves were what made the hairs along the back of Jim's neck stand on end. He was immediately on high alert, and didn't know why or how to explain it, and he wasn't the only one. Glancing around at his people, standing in a scattered array of beam down formation, he saw that the eyes of his officers were also flitting about at the figures before them warily.

They had been provided with coordinates to meet with the Cenlarian High Tribe, and yet it appeared to be more than a tribe that met them there in the public square. It was quiet, aside from the rustle of wind kicking up in preparation for another storm of snow, and the Cenlarian people were all just shapes pressing in around them. They all wore heavy cloaks made of furs and scraps of cloth, deep cowls encompassing their heads, obscuring their features and appearing like some kind of a cult welcome.

Jim blinked, at a loss, because no one was saying anything, and no one was coming forward. There was only a ring of similarly dressed people so many feet deep that Jim couldn't see through all the bodies to the edge of the square.

"Captain..."

The familiar voice snapped him out of it in the end, jolting Jim out of his frozen silence as Spock took a step closer to him through the snow, his tricorder in his hand spitting out readings to the Vulcan. Whatever data he was receiving, however, must not be all that alarming, or he would have given some sort of warning. Instead, it was as if Spock was trying to remind his human Captain of his manners.

Clearing his throat, Jim relaxed his stance with a bit of effort, shaking off the feeling of dread and the sense of unnaturalness that had settled over him once they had materialized. "Hello," Jim began, striding forward toward the being he hoped was the tribal leader. "I am Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise, here to commence diplomatic talks, as promised," he explained, grateful for the universal translator in Lieutenant Uhura's hands that was transmitting his Federation Standard words into the Cenlarian language. "And these are officers, First Officer and Chief Science Officer Mr. Spock, my Communications Officer Lieutenant Uhura," Jim nodded toward his colleagues in turn, introducing them, "and Lieutenant Manning and Ensign Reeves."

Just as he turned to regard the crowd once more, a single figure stepped forward, pale hands lifting to push back the wide cowl hiding the face. A man with gleaming white and silver hair lifted his head from under the shadow of his garb and gleaming beads of onyx caught Jim's eye where they were threaded throughout thick braids and masses about the man's head. He heard a soft feminine gasp of awe from Uhura behind him. 

"Welcome, he who is Kirk. I am called Vex, the leader of The Four Tribes. On behalf of Cenlar IV, I welcome you and yours." The voice that emerged from Leader Vex is smooth and practiced, however the universal translator makes it seem oddly formal and stiff, even though the voice is like liquid velvet. Jim shoved down an odd reaction in himself, one of mistrust. He usually kept a more open mind regarding missions such as these, but the rather vague information about these people, their planet, and their culture given to him by Starfleet had tripped some kind of alarm in his head. It had been sounding since three weeks ago, and his open mind had grown increasingly narrow the longer they stood there in the cold surrounded by cloaked figures.

Why hadn't Starfleet's account of Cenlar IV been more detailed? He knew virtually nothing about these people or their customs and he hoped to God and back that he wouldn't fuck something up here. This planet was potentially rich in trade, a great source for mining of precious minerals and hard deposits; also, it was strategically placed between the Federation Zone and Romulan Space. If they could manage to sign a treaty with these people, the Federation would potentially have a valuable observation post to help guard against an old enemy.

"Thank you," Jim replied, beginning to notice a little more about this Vex fellow. He was tall, but only about half a head over Spock, and though the rest of him was covered, when he spoke, Jim found it hard to look away from the eyes that met his through the grey afternoon sunlight. The eyes were narrow, more almond than round, and the irises were larger than in a human. They were bright, an unnaturally grey and white color that almost blended completely out into the whites of the eyes. It was this that caused the unsettled feeling in Jim's gut to sit up and pay attention.

"These are my subordinates," Vex motioned to three figures that detached from the crowd, removing their hoods to reveal features similar to Leader Vexs’. It seemed that white hair adorned with beads and stones was a common fashion trend amongst these people. A female and two other males were introduced as members of the Leadership of the Tribes and Jim might have appreciated the beauty of the female... if her stare hadn’t been so cold and detached. Perhaps it was the weather…

"And...everybody else?" Jim asked, feeling a little bold and motioning around them at their extensive welcoming party.

Vex's brows lifted and Jim couldn't help but be reminded of one of Spock's favorite expressions, "Curious tribesmen and women. We do not see many space dwellers." The translation was odd, but Jim could understand. "Come, this way."

They were led away from the square and the hooded figures of the tribesmen and women parted like a slow sea of pelts and furs, a taxidermist's dream...and a vegetarian's nightmare, for sure. Jim glanced sidelong at Spock and noted the Vulcan's stiff and alert posture as they strode through the snow toward a large stone building with a pillared facade. The Vulcan had to be frozen through by now, even with their Starfleet issued parkas equipped with temperature controls. 

Jim's fingers were icy and bare to the bite of the winter wind, and he could only imagine how cold Spock's probably were. He glanced down at the Vulcan's hands clamped vice-like about the tricorder; they were tinted at the tips with a rusty red color. He should have suggested heated mittens for his First Officer.

The five of them trailed in a defensive line up the steps behind Tribal Leader Vex and his attending subordinates, and Jim shivered violently once they passed through a set of revolving doors into a warm, although dark chamber. The floors were a dark marble shot through with silver lines of some mineral that made them glisten and catch the eye in the low light and Jim wondered if this entire planet was eternally dim. Did these people have an aversion to bright light? He had no idea, given that it wasn't in the dossier, which still frustrated him to no end. How did Starfleet expect him to do his job if they didn't do theirs beforehand? This really wasn't turning out to be his area.

The ceiling above their heads had only one flickering flame in a large, cast-iron lamp suspended down over the open foyer of what appeared to be an administration building of some kind. Rather than the normal secretary behind a desk, or open concept room with tables and chairs... there was a long crevasse down the center of the room. Taking a few steps closer, the sounds of his movement echoing in the chamber, Jim peered down over the low lip surrounding what appeared to be a pool of some murky substance. He wouldn't call it water, for it was nearly as opaque as milk, but colored a dingy grey. It was somehow depressing, like it had once been someone's dirty laundry water yet to be drained away.

Pursing his lips, Jim followed behind the Tribal Leader as they all circled around this large pool. There were cushions surrounding it, plush and colored a deep red. He waited to sit, watching the Tribal Leader for some hint toward customs, but they were simply bid to sit as Vex gracefully folded down onto a cushion at the head of the square pool, his subordinates on either side. Jim took up the other end with Spock kneeling at his right and Uhura sitting closest to Vex so the translator might pick up his words more easily.

A dozen or so cloaked figures emerged from darkened archways about the long room, carting with them braziers of oily fire belching out blessed gusts of heat and lighting the room to an adequate degree. Another handful of attendants produced carafes of some dark beverage, steaming and inviting with a somewhat mineral fragrance. Jim poured himself a serving to be polite, waiting for Vex to do so from across the open pool before he wrapped his hands around the metal mug, stealing its warmth.

Spock seemed wary of the dark and steamy beverage, but a moment of observing his tricorder readings had him giving a slight nod to his Captain and the rest of their companions, who all took a tentative sip under the expectant and watchful...creepy eyes of their hospitable hosts and hostesses.

The taste was...somewhat metallic, and Jim wondered if metals were of some great importance or sign of wealth and import with these people, for it seemed they infused all their products with metal. Little golden flecks of some light mineral float in the drink and Jim licked the flavor off his lips and offered the Tribal Leader a smile. A measure of tension began to ease after that particular ritual and Jim led the talks for a time, opening their negotiations with the Cenlarians.

They went back and forth for quite some time, so long in fact that they were served a meal and Jim didn’t wait this time for Spock's cautious readings before he picked up a two-pronged fork and odd ladle shaped spoon to eat what was similarly shaped like a breast of a fowl cooked in a dark sauce and some kind of blue and orange vegetable that ended up tasting just like beets. He couldn’t complain, for it was many shades a better meal than the one he'd been served during negotiations with the Ferengi.

As the talks drew on Jim leaned his arms along the fat ledge surrounding the murky pool. Their dishes were cleared and Jim ended up eating Spock's portion of fowl so as not to convey a rude gesture of wasting food. The braisers were stoked a second time, doubling the heat throughout the chamber.

A cloaked servant dropped some kind of sprinkling like pellets into the pool between Uhura and one of the Tribal Leaders and Jim watched, trying not to grow distracted or become alarmed when he saw something shift under the surface of the water. He leaned back slowly, his breath coming quick and his eyes lifting toward Vex across the pool. But the Cenlarian did not seem bothered, even as Jim was certain he saw the pale milky tilt of a fleshy limb breach the surface of the pool before disappearing again. What the hell was living in that water? And what had it been doing up to now?

The water began to froth with movement, so intense that Vex actually had to raise his voice to be heard over the violent splashing and thrashing between them. It was almost like some sort of feeding frenzy and Spock's eyes were glued to his tricorder with a single-minded fascination. Uhura was clutching her translation device and leaning far back from the pool, shading herself from droplets of water that attempted to stain her face and uniform. Both Manning and Reeves had their hands discreetly on the small phasers attached to their belts but a sharp shake of the head from Jim had them stiffly relaxing again. Whatever this creature was, it seemed to be a pet, or at least fed and tolerated as such as Vex payed it no mind. And to think, not a half hour ago, Jim had considered dipping his fingers into the water to test its viscosity. Now he was entirely too grateful he hadn't.

 

It wasn’t until they had decided to draw their conversation to a close that Vex and his followers rose from the table, bidding Jim and the rest of his away team to do the same. Their filmy white eyes gave nothing away and Jim felt a little guilty at the relief creeping in over his head triggered by the close of today's proceedings. They had made good progress and the universal translator was improving with the Cenlarian language, making it easier for Jim to tailor the Federation's offers and assurances to the liking of these people.

After all their hospitality and the mostly palatable meal, minus the piranha show afterward, Jim was looking forward to being back on the ship and in his own element again. There was something about away missions that drained a person, whether it was due to the tension of being dropped into some unfamiliar place or the stress of heading a major diplomatic mission--Jim was feeling exhausted. Before he could draw his communicator from his belt, though, the Cenlarian leader Vex raised his hand to forestall him.

"Please, it would bestow great honor upon us if you and your companions would stay among us. We have prepared a place, suitable to your needs." Vex's hands clasp before him, disappearing into the folds of his long robe. One of the Cenlarian subordinates withdrew some sort of bundle of twigs and sticks all bound together with twine, causing Vex to continue in his level tone, "It is our custom to impart a gift; something that might bring you comfort here throughout the duration of our negotiations."

With a glance at Spock, Jim arched his brows and reached out to accept the strange bundle of twigs from the Cenlarian. "Thank you, we appreciate your charity and hospitality, however it would be best if we-"

"Captain-" Spock's clipped tone cut Jim off short, resulting in his turning to regard his First Officer. Normally the Vulcan would not interrupt, unless he deemed it both logical and necessary. "A moment, please?"

Strange, that Spock would draw Jim aside for a private conference, considering this entire meeting so far had only brought forth respectful silence from the Vulcan. Stranger still, is was the wary glance the Vulcan directed over his shoulder at the tribal leader, Vex. Almost as if he mistrusted him.

"The Cenlarian people are a very superstitious race. I believe to rebuff their attempts at hospitality at this time could incur a certain..." Deep brown eyes turn inward, thoughtful, "wrath, if not mistrust from our new 'friends'." His brows lifted at the word 'friends', causing Jim's lips to purse. He'd thought the same thing himself, but his longing for his warm bed and the familiar spaces of the Enterprise had caused him to hope. It would seem his First was advising him against his creature comforts.

"Yes, Spock, you're probably right..." Swallowing a sigh, Jim's shoulders tipped down in weariness. This wouldn't be the first planet he had elected to sojourn on while on a diplomatic mission; but it would be the first one he could recall getting such an unpleasant feeling from. He couldn't quite tell if it was the wintery winds and snow that caused him this discomfort, or if it was the keen and silent eyes of the Cenlarians. Whatever it was, it was causing the hairs along the back of his neck to prickle and stand on end. He didn't want to stay down here, but it was his duty, and if he departed for the ship too early it would result in botching this whole endeavor. So, as Captain, he would stay, but that didn't mean they all had to.

"I...apologize, Tribal Leader, for keeping you waiting. My First Officer here has advised me to stay and enjoy...what comforts you have to offer." Comforts indeed, if this meeting hall was anything to go by, he'd rather spend the night in the brig. "However, my companions have work to return to aboard our ship."

"But Captain," Reeves interjected softly, tipping his head down in his Captain's direction, voice charged with alarm, "you'll stay here, alone?"

Jim's brows lift; Reeves had always taken his job very seriously, a good quality in a good officer...but when he questioned orders out of a sense of honor or protectiveness, Jim wasn't happy to encourage it. "Yes, Ensign, I hardly think I'll be in any danger. Besides, the ship is just one communicator transmission away."

"I and the Captain will both be remaining," Spock clarified, causing Jim's lips to twist with some annoyance. Was everyone getting their two cents in today then? Spock spoke once more to Vex and the Tribal subordinates. "We will recommence tomorrow, when the rest of our companions will join us here."

"Very well." Vex tipped his head to the side, his chin tucked in an odd sort of angle against his shoulder, the same kind of gesture Jim had seen the other Cenlarians do throughout their meeting. "Come, this way."

"I don’t remember approving shore leave for you, Mr. Spock... is this a matter I shall have to turn into an order?" Jim muttered, looking around at his officers. Uhura was looking relieved, if not a little disappointed--probably considering the cultural opportunities she would miss by being dismissed.

"I do recall Doctor McCoy writing in his latest report that our senior staff are not partaking of shore leave as... often as he feels is required," Spock retorted, causing Jim to force a smirk of submission off his face. "This planet seems adequate for that purpose.”

"Leave it to you, Mr. Spock, to choose to vacation on a rock of solid ice. I could think of over a hundred better places for you to take up a little 'R and R’," Jim commented as they left their companions behind, taking up formation to be beamed aboard their beloved ship. Both Captain and First Officer stepped out into the harsh cold outside the meeting hall, following their hosts and hostesses deeper into the clan's township.

"If I have the time, I do intend to accomplish just that."

Jim stopped for a half second, taken aback, blinking up at the Vulcan through the grey haze and the lazy snowflakes, "You, resting and recuperating? Who are you, and where is my dedicated and tireless First Officer?"

Spock didn’t take the bait of Jim's humor, nor did he react to the goading comment, but he did shoot Jim a smart glance, his hands clasped behind him as they tip up a hill past a series of stone buildings that appeared to be shops of some kind. "I was referring to the other common abbreviation utilized for 'R and R', Captain. 'Reading and Reviewing'."

Grinning now, Jim was somewhat mollified by their banter, admitting to himself that he was a little glad he wouldn’t have to sleep on this creepy planet by himself. Even the trees were rather decrepit, with their gnarled branches and their sparse vegetation. Winter on Earth had never seemed creepy to Jim, and even if the landscape was rather familiar to earth’s here, the human cultures had tamed the seasonal death of the land through holidays, visiting friends, imagination and gifts. Here, it was as if the people's lives were on pause; all the ancient stonework and old-fashioned cobble stone streets bespoke of a similar time long ago in Earth's own history, not of an advanced race such as the Cenlarians.

Both he and Spock were led over a ridge overlooking the small township and Jim had begun to regret their agreement with the Tribal Leader more with every step. He needed proper boots, the heated kind, not these standard regulation boots meant to be worn by officers roaming the temperature regulated corridors of a starship. If he was miserable, he was sure that Spock was doubly so, just doing a far better job of hiding it. Why the hell were they being placed so far off from the meeting hall? Was there not some inn or faithful citizen who could bunk them up somewhere rather than having to traipse all the way through town? They'd have to hoof it all the way back, unless they were given some other means to make their way back down the hill by morning.

He didn't want to complain, Spock's words echoing in his head about customs and hospitality; maybe this was the best the Cenlarians could provide? As they reached the crest of the slope, there was a long bank of trees, the kind that would most certainly shade a property during the middle of spring or summer with their leaves, but now, during the middle of Cenlar IV's winter, they looked like gnarled and witchy fingers all pointing deliberately and accusingly toward the purple-grey sky.

Brown strings of ivy cluttered the gnarled limbs and hung across their path as Leader Vex and his attendance brushed them aside to reveal... a stone abomination.

"My God..." Jim muttered, half in awe and half in horror as he ducked his head to emerge into a snowy yard, the innocent white of it beckoning toward a monstrous mansion.

The whole structure was made out of stone, each dark grey brick seemingly molded by hand and placed meticulously across the hulking facade of the mansion. It had tiny narrow windows stuck in clusters across the three visible floors; the very walls seeming to reach toward the sky in peaked formations complemented by ominously sharp tipped spires. Two turrets guarded each corner of the residence, their curved walls also made of stone, with dead and leafless ivy stretching across them like spider webs.

Jim got the distinct and unwelcome feeling of foreboding as he looked up at this mansion from the snowy yard, disliking each darkened window. The mansion felt heavy, weighed down, as if it's looming physical presence pressed in upon the viewer. It was stifling...suffocating.

"I trust you will be comfortable."

Vex's whispering voice was enough to pierce through the utter silence buzzing like an electrical current through Jim's ears, startling the Captain out of his horrorstruck observation. A quick glance around brought Spock to his attention, who was regarding him speculatively, his tricorder in hand but otherwise forgotten as the Vulcan had turned to view the expression on Jim's face. How long had he been silent?

"Uh, yes, yes this should be fine." He stammered, glancing across to the Tribal Leader Vex, "it's just so... big," he muttered, swallowing. Nevermind the draft this place would no doubt have, but what were they supposed to do with all this space? "Will we be the only ones living in it for the time being?" It seemed rather unlikely that these people would just have this house standing vacant and abandoned...right?

"The current residents of this hall are residing elsewhere at this moment," Vex supplied, his gait slow and his hands folded before him. His attendants, Jim noticed, were burning more of those strange smelling bundles of twigs, waving the smoke up through the air before their Tribal Leader. Jim and Spock trailed behind, with the Vulcan peering up at the house and making note of it across his tricorder readouts. He murmured to Jim:

"This building is well over a century old, Captain, perhaps the oldest we have witnessed in this township." Spock sounded fascinated, not at all wary or apprehensive, like Jim was feeling, in regards to having to stay in this house. Leave it to a Vulcan to care more about history and science than comfort and a warm bed.

The front steps had been brushed of their blanket of snow, and as Jim took to the first stair, he blinked and blew on his hands, confused when both Vex and his companions stopped in a line up the steps to the right of the door. Vex held out a key, which Spock reached out a hand to retrieve, looking down at the heavy, archaic device in the palm of his hand.

"Are you...going to show us around?" Jim asked, frowning. Cenlarian hospitality indeed.

"This is as far as we come, Captain," Vex replied, his choice of words a little strange to Jim, because it sounded as if either the Tribal Leader wasn't allowed to come any farther...or he didn't wish to. Either way it had alarm bells going off again in Jim’s head and he glanced up at the dim windows of the second floor of the mansion, each looking like a gaping hole in a stoney, toothless smile.

"Is there uh, something special about this place?" Jim asked, his brows knit together in worry. What if this was some forbidden or dangerous place to the Cenlarians? Could this potentially be a trap? The Cenlarians had seemed amicable enough during their talks; their creepy and withdrawn demeanor had tossed Jim for a loop, but they had done nothing to indicate they wished to harm his officers or himself.

"Only that it is...rich with history," Vex remarked, and Jim did not miss the momentary pause in his speech. There was something about this mansion that the Tribal Leader wasn't telling him. A part of him wanted to figure it out on his own, but the more cautious part of him extracted the key from Spock's curious fingertips and motioned toward the Vulcan’s tricorder. When he got a light and open glance back in return, he knew that Spock had not noted anything of danger there. This mansion...was just a mansion.

A big, drafty, brick mansion.

Sighing, Jim took to the stairs and fitted the iron key in the heavy lock of the door, feeling like somewhat of a throwback as he did so, having watched old movies that started in a similar fashion. Nothing to fear about a creepy, old house. He shook the feeling off and gripped the iron handle affixed to the heavy wooden plank door, turning his head to regard Tribal Leader Vex with an impish gleam in his eye.

"You are positive you cannot join us for, uh, tea or something, gentlemen and women?" He asked with a slight smirk, an expression that died quickly when he was only met with blank and uncomprehending stares in return. "Right, nevermind then..."

He cracked the heavy door open on its hinges, which shrieked with the sound of unoiled metal, but before he walked in he whirled around and caught the Leader's attention before he could descend the stairs again. "Ah, we will continue our meeting tomorrow morning?"

Vex inclined his head, the long white strands of his hair whispering forward over his shoulders. "Yes Captain, when the sun has risen, we will send for you and your companion."

Spock joined Jim on the landing before the front door, two pillars of stone hemming them in on each side, the two of them watching the small party of Cenlarians disappear through the trees and ivy.

"What...was that stuff they were burning, Mr. Spock?" Jim asked, frowning as the white smoke of the burnt twigs was swept away in an icy breeze.

"I believe they are bundles of branches from a medicinal shrub that grows here on Cenlar IV, although it smells fairly similar to that of sagebrush," Spock answered, ducking his head so he might pull the strap of his tricorder on across his chest.

The two of them shared a glance before Jim let the heavy door swing in upon its hinges. They were swept into the mansion by a gust of wind and Jim shivered, reminded of his need to contact the ship and request some thicker and more effective clothing. Spock wandered into the gloomy foyer, a marbled affair with heavy stone pillars which held up the balcony of the second floor landing. There was a staircase, a stone staircase of course, with a rug affixed to every step. Statues in various poses greeted them from across the foyer, where two archways led to rooms off to their right and left, shrouded in mystery due to their heavy curtains. Jim idly reached out to the drapery on the left and pulled it aside, revealing what seemed to be a living room with low couches and a fireplace.

"Oh thank God, they have fireplaces," he muttered, casting the heavy curtain back over a curved rod attached to the wall where it hung, throwing dust up into the air that nearly made Jim sneeze. "Shit, I don't think they do a whole lot of entertaining..." He muttered dejectedly, "You'd think they'd put forward a little more effort before letting someone stay here..."

Turning from the room, he met Spock from across the foyer where the Vulcan had emerged from the adjoining room to the right, his own curtain tossed aside and hanging from the wall. The Vulcan waved his hand idly before his face, dispelling the dust motes while looking down at his tricorder. "Ambient temperature in here is... approximately five degrees Celsius, and will only continue to drop as the night progresses. Perhaps we might find a solution to heating this house before we explore further."

"I am beginning to seriously doubt there is a central heating system in this place, Spock." Jim grumbled, his steps echoing throughout the marble foyer, muffled only by the thick rug in the center of the hall. He looked up toward the second floor balcony and called out, just for good measure, "Hello?"

There was no reply, just the odd silence, not even an echo of his voice returned to him, as if the house had swallowed up his noise and kept it, like a trinket in a locket. Glancing at Spock, Jim smirked at the Vulcan's arched brow and shrugged, "Never know, Spock."

Reaching for his communicator, Jim flipped it open and rubbed his thumb over the tuner, sending up his frequency. He got nothing but silence in reply and when he opened another channel to the ship, all he got was static so loud it hurt his ears and he had to snap the device shut. "Christ!" He huffed, "it was working thirty minutes ago." Grumbling about the unreliability of frequencies in unknown space, Jim wandered the lower rooms of the house, hoping he might find a clear area his signal might penetrate. But not even standing right up against a window gave him a signal and he cursed again, tugging up the hood of his jacket once more as he made for the front door.

"Don't wander far, okay? We might have to beam back up to the ship if they can't get some supplies down here to us." Pursing his lips, Jim braced himself against the cold and emerged out onto the stoop again, holding his communicator up to his face to block some of the wind and get a look at his signal screen. There was a single illuminated bar and Jim hurriedly patched through a call.

"Scotty!"

"Aye, Scott here." The Scotsman's brogue was a sweet comfort, a reminder to Jim that his ship was still up there, warm and regulated and running as she should. He wished they could just pretend they were staying here, beam up and beam back down again before the Cenlarians could arrive to retrieve them by morning. But Spock's words and their earlier implications forestall that fantasy before it can take root.

"There is no communication available from inside the house we're staying in, and it's damn cold out here, so I'm going to request a beam down at check in, just to be sure we're still alright."

"Aye sir, I'll send Reeves back down to ya."

"Good, good... every two hours to start, just until we get settled in. I'm hoping it won't take us much longer to get the Cenlarian Leader to sign the treaty. But, until then, we're stuck down here and living like late eighteenth century aristocrats."

"You're what sir?" Scotty asked, confusion evident in his tone.

"It's damn cold, Scotty. We need some thermal blankets, perhaps a solar heating unit...I haven't come across any chopped wood yet."

"Chopped wood?" Scotty's voice conveyed a smile, "och sir, sounds doonright romantic doon there."

"A Vulcan with frostbite isn't anything romantic, Scotty. Throw in some basic provisions as well, I won't know what we have until I take a complete stock of the house. Beam it all down as close as you can Scotty. Kirk out." Not wanting to withstand the frigid temperatures any longer, Jim snapped his communicator shut and turned to go back into the house, gripping the handle and giving it a push and nearly smacking his face into the wood as the damn thing failed to even budge. He stepped back and jiggled the lock, then balled his fist up and pounded on the door. "Spock!" He'd left the damn key on the table in the living room, but how had the door locked anyway?

He spent another half minute pounding on the door before it opened, the handle yanked right out of his hand as it swung inward with a frowning Spock standing on the other side. "Captain?"

"It was locked..." Jim muttered, shivering and tromping inside, stamping his feet to get the snow off his boots.

"No," Spock blinked, shutting the door behind Jim and releasing the latch, gesturing toward the bolt lying open above it, "the lock was still disengaged."

Jim paused, looking at the door, the lock, and then at Spock before muttering, "It was stuck then..." The door hadn't locked itself, and Spock sure as hell hadn't locked it, so Jim chalked it up to being an old house with uneven doorways.

Both of Spock's brows rose in unison, his only concession toward a human shrug as he followed Jim toward the back of the house. It was a sprawling first floor, with a dining hall displaying a long table and a bank of curtained windows; a second living room that Spock later called a 'sun room'; and also a library and office. There was also a bathroom. Jim sighed and sagged with relief when he saw that this house at least had plumbing. "Holy hell, I thought we'd have to go draw our water out a well for our baths." He snorted, pushing a swinging door open into a kitchen. A large center block island took up the middle of the great expanse while the rest was ringed by unpolished marble counters and a great, big gas stove.

"Oh hey," Smiling, Jim approached the great iron contraption, fiddling with the latch holding the lower door closed and opening it with a squeaking grind of metal, revealing the wicks within. 

"It's ancient, but I actually know how to use one of these..."

Together, they came across a larder stocked with great blocks of ice keeping various food stuffs chilled. There were an awful lot of meats, something Jim had figured this culture depended on, considering how many furs the Cenlarians wore to stay warm. But there were also some root vegetables and Jim held up a purple and yellow suspect, handing it to Spock who pressed his fingers against it, testing it and smelling it. "Either way, I asked Scotty to beam down provisions, so you won't starve."

"How considerate," Spock remarked dryly, and in that moment Jim wished they weren't on a diplomatic mission. If this was some kind of harebrained shore leave, or otherwise unofficial business, he and Spock's agreement would be null and void.

Over six months ago, after a mission in which they had both been trapped and pitted against one another in a series of ugly and barbaric games for a higher being's entertainment, Jim and Spock had agreed to keep their relationship strictly business while on duty and on missions. 

They had agreed that having their relationship discovered and extorted in order to gain leverage over one or the other would not be a scenario they might endure and survive, so they had created this pact. While Jim was on duty and in command, carrying out orders on Starfleet business, he and Spock were strictly Captain and First Officer. When both of them were otherwise relieved of duties, however, they indulged in their burgeoning relationship, mending any damage to it derived from mentally and physically taxing missions.

To make things worse, Jim had agreed that diplomatic missions were of the highest priority, therefore they were to be very strict with themselves while in public...and in private during those missions, as well. The debacle on Bergot III had proven that very clearly, for one never knew who might be spying on you, friend or foe, while arranging diplomatic meetings. Jim didn't want to end up on the sharp end of a stick simply because the race he was dealing with were bigots and homophobic.

Together, they weathered the journey upstairs. Weathered because it seemed to grow colder the further up they went, which made no sense to Jim because didn't heat rise? "Is there a window open or something up here?" He muttered, peeking into an open doorway to find another bathroom, this one slightly larger than the one downstairs with a claw-foot bathtub and one of those ancient toilets with the tank nailed to the wall above it and an ivory flush chain.

"I think I can see my breath..." Jim grumbled as they both split up across the hallway, Jim going to the right and Spock to the left again. Jim found another sitting room, at least he figured it was judging by the sheet covered furniture silhouettes that looked suspiciously like sofas or lounge chairs. 

There were only two windows in the room however, and when he stepped inside to take a look around, he grimaced at how dim it was. It was as if the two tall windows didn't let any light in and he crossed the room to peer out of one, brushing the back of his hand across the pane. Was it just dirty? The fading light of the late evening shouldn't be making it this dark in here.

Frowning still, he swiped more dust off the windowsill and grimaced. This place definitely wasn't lived in, unless that sage-like stuff the Cenlarians were always burning was what left this ashy dust behind. He was rubbing the grit between his fingertips when the hairs along the back of his neck rose up. He paused, movements stilling, his eyes turning up toward the reflection of the window. He saw himself, frozen in an instinctual moment training had only heightened in him, his senses telling him that he wasn't alone. 

Of course, his first instinct was to call out to Spock, but when he did, turning his head to the side to glance over his shoulder, he got no reply and he could see the room was empty save for himself. The crawling feeling of being watched persisted though, and he turned away from the window, surveying the room. There was some kind of musical contraption set up on a low table across the room, a weird set of strings pulled taught across a dusty looking soundboard. A large, gilded mirror stood over the fireplace in the room, reflecting it all back at him and he rounded the back of the sheet-covered sofa, running his hand along it and disturbing the dust.

He could see his hands on the back of the sofa in the mirror, the reflection tilted, his image ending just below his chest. A tapping sound to his right made him flinch, turning his head, his trained eye catching the movement of what appeared to be a metal thimble rolling along the floorboards beneath the window. He'd probably kicked it…

A breath whispered by his ear and he stiffened, his heart racing, his fingers clenching tighter on the back of the sofa. Blue eyes crept up toward the reflection of the mirror, widening when a second set of hands had joined on the back of the sofa. He jumped, a small cry startled out of him, scrambling a step back and sagging forward when he saw it was just... Spock.

"God...dammit Spock, don't sneak up on me like that. Shit." He gasped, panting, his heart beating so hard against his ribcage he thought it could possibly leap up his throat.

"I apologize." Spock murmured, casting Jim another one of his quizzical looks. "Are you well? When I entered you seemed...agitated. I called your name but you did not hear me."

"I uh," blinking, Jim glanced down at the floor where he'd seen the timble but it was gone, probably rolled under the sofa, "I'm fine, was just thinking about the meeting. I'm pretty damn tired... think I'll pick a bed and turn in." He was tired, after that tense meeting with the Cenlarians in the square, and then the opening of negotiations; between all that and now this fucking house, Jim considered himself not the diplomatic material for the upteenth time.

But he was the Captain, dammit, and he got shit done, deal or no deal. He wasn't going to let some old dingy house get the better of him. He was just tired, it was making his senses go haywire, being in a new and unfamiliar place. He'd wake up in the morning, figure out how to start that gas stove downstairs, maybe rustle up some bacon or the equivalent of such, and be right as rain (as Bones would say) by their next meeting.

Spock still looked a shade skeptical, but he did not argue as Jim breezed past him and out into the hall. "There is a bedroom through the first door, another at the end of the hall."

"What's up those stairs?" Jim inquired, motioning lazily toward an open doorway at the very end of the hall.

"Those are a set of stairs leading up to the tower," Spock replied, folding his hands with his tricorder grasped in them behind his back.

"Did you go up there?" Jim asked, casting a curious glance toward his First Officer.

"I did not."

Jim's lips twisted, then ticked in a fashion Spock would be familiar with; goading humor. "Scared, Mr. Spock? I'm sure a few bats wouldn't hurt you..."

"I did not hear any sounds indicating there were chiroptera of any variety up there, though it would be a logical place for one to reside, given the distinct draft I felt upon opening the door." Spock delivered, defending himself without really defending himself with his ever present logic.

"Should probably keep that door shut, might be a hole in the roof. At this point, with the way this place looks, I wouldn't be surprised." Jim commented as he opened the door to the first bedroom around the corner from the second set of stairs leading up to the third floor.

"Oh great..." Jim's exclamation caused Spock to follow him past the doorway to the first bedroom and the two of them stood just inside the door, Spock hovering behind his Captain to look over his shoulder at the setup of the room. "This place is...seriously creepy."

"It is rather antiquated, though still of use." Spock argued.

"Spock, it's a four-poster bed... with curtains all around it. I'll look like Ebenezer-Fuckin'-Scrooge in there. All I'll need is a pointed night cap and a long night gown to match," he grumbled, "besides, I like to be able to see all around me when I lay down to sleep..." Something he could thank a certain planet for, forcing him to keep both eyes open when he slept while looking after all those kids. All those innocent children depending on him, asking him, 'Please Jimmy, I'm hungry, I'm hungry'. He shook the memory of Tarsus IV out of his mind, squeezed his eyes shut and turned toward the far side of the room.

Above another fireplace, there was a framed painting, a portrait of a woman in a long baby-blue dress with long brown hair tied up in a very dramatic style. She sat reclined across a loveseat, her feet up on a tiny cushioned stool while a small cherubic boy played on the floor beneath her steadying hand which rested along his scalp. The image seemed innocuous enough, done by a skilled hand and with a dark background that drew the eye to the startling paleness of the skin and the dazzling richness of the clothes and props. However, the serenity the poses attempted to convey was not depicted in the eyes that stared out from the frame. The eyes of the woman were hard, almost pained in the way that the artist had depicted the tightness of her face. But the boy’s image was what gave Jim pause; the tiny face was blank, but the eyes were wild with fear, round and wide.

"Well... let’s hope they don't live here then." Jim sighed, turning away, "Oh!" he dropped his shoulders, turning toward the door again and rushing out of it, "the provisions and things!"

They lugged in two sealed Starfleet crates on anti-gravs from outside, the yard having fallen into the darkness of the approaching night while the wind whipped up, causing the snow to hiss and shift. Once they had the door shut and latched, Jim yanked his hood off his head and stooped to peer at the crates, swearing when he couldn't make out which contained what. "We have got to do something about the lighting in here. See any old switches or anything, Spock?"

Scanning the walls, they found a set of switches near the front door in the foyer and when Spock flicked them on, a dim light above their heads flickered, as if the wiring were faulty, before finally swelling with blessed illumination. "Christ, the whole house is decrepit." Jim whispered as both he and Spock unpacked the crates. They carried the heavy thermal blankets up the stairs, Jim taking a few into his room and Spock moving down the hall to his with the rest.

"Mr. Scott only provided us with a single portable heating unit," Spock remarked, hefting the solar-powered machine out of the crate, already charged for a full two weeks of heat. He flicked it on immediately, crouching down beside it while he waited for Jim to come up with a solution to their heating problems.

"Alright..." Jim squinted, because a part of him wondered if Scotty had done that purposefully, perhaps thought he was being a romantic devil by forcing them to shack up in the same room. "Well," he checked his chronometer on his communicator, "our check in should be here in twenty minutes, so we'll send back a request with him and hopefully have enough portables in time so we can get some sleep." Wiping his hands over his face and back through his hair, Jim took the other crate that held simple nutritional items, no doubt packed and appointed by his own CMO, through to the kitchen. That man worried too much.

When Jim came back out into the foyer, he looked around for Spock but didn't see him, only noting that the Vulcan had found the light switches for the hallway upstairs and their two bedrooms. He could smell the faint odor of burning wood, and when the Vulcan emerged to take the portable upstairs, Jim asked, "Where'd you find wood?"

"There is a back door leading out into the property from the kitchen, and there is a stack of wood against the side of the house, covered with pelts and leather. I have made us each a fire."

Smiling, Jim was distracted from his intentions of praising the Vulcan when a rap on their door sounded. Turning, Jim unlatched the lock and bolt before opening it a fraction, peering out into the dark and swirling snow.

"It's Reeves, sir. Let me in, it's colder than Delta Vega out here!" Reeves' frantic and shaking voice filtered in along the howl of the wind and Jim opened the door wider, ushering his security officer indoors where Reeves stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together briskly. "I'll w-wear a second parka next time..." He shivered, glancing around out of habit and as training had taught him, noting the age of the mansion. "Jeez, they have you two in a museum or something?"

"It feels a whole heck of a lot like a museum, doesn't it?" Jim muttered, perching his hands on his hips and staring up the staircase.

"Complete with that...dank smell even." Reeves sniffed, the end of his nose bright red from the bite of the cold outside.

"Mildew." Jim agreed, nose wrinkling as he picked up his and Spock's packed bags, hefting them over his shoulders and taking to the stairs. Reeves followed loyally behind, still rubbing his hands together and shaking snow off his clothes as he went.

"This place is like it’s right out of an old horror movie." Reeves commented as he peered into both Jim and Spock's open bedroom doors where Jim was setting his bag down and Spock was busying himself by peeling back the duvet and layers of sheets on his own curtained bed. 

"Everything is all ornamental," Reeves continued, wandering down the long hallway and peering into more open doors, ogling, "but it's almost like at any moment something might just jump out at you and-"

"That's enough Ensign," Jim quipped from his open door, drawing Reeves back with the clip in his tone, his lips pursed thin and tight; humorless.

Reeves returned doggedly down the hall, "Should I relay anything for you, sir, when I get back to the ship?" He asked, his wet boots leaving dark shapes along the rug in the hall.

"We need another portable heater, maybe three actually, we don't want to run out of wood burning fires all the time in this place, it's too big to keep heated that way," Jim mused. Spock emerged from his chosen room, his hair somewhat mussed, as if the bed had given him a run for his money while he was wrestling it into a pristine fashion.

"Perhaps if we had a portable for every common area. A living room, a bathroom, and the kitchen." Spock suggested, causing Jim to nod.  
"Why don't you gather those things, Ensign, and beam back down as soon as you can. We'll wait up." Jim cast a dubious glance toward Spock, only realizing once the phrase had left his lips how...domestic it had sounded.

"Of course, sir. I'll be back as soon as possible," Reeves promised, pulling his thick coat around himself tighter before letting himself out the front door. Jim locked it behind him, realizing that he probably didn't necessarily have to, but a part of him was still nervous and a bit on edge and he felt better having at least some modicum of safety in place. Even if it was just a simple iron bolt lock.

Returning upstairs, Jim eyed the closed door to the tower, wondering if there was some kind of room up there. If he had a tower, he'd put some kind of observatory up there, but he didn't think this house was exactly equipped for that kind of machinery. Not to mention, the technology of this planet was more advanced than that of some M-Class planets in the near system, but they were still a far cry from space travel and stargazing through ultra-high powered lenses.

Turning to face Spock's open bedroom door, Jim leaned up in the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest, watching as Spock went through his bag, packed meticulously by his yeoman, selecting warmer under clothes and laying them out on the edge of the bed. Brown eyes glanced his way and Jim smiled wearily, tempted by their moment alone and a fire flickering nicely in the hearth across the room. Maybe he should have held off on ordering those extra portables; a night tucked under a heaping pile of blankets next to a warm Vulcan sounded rather nice right now, but he was going to stick to his pact. He and Spock had sworn, never again in a public setting that could potentially harm them or the mission. Not enough was known about the Cenlarian culture for Jim to make an informed decision on whether they were homophobic or not, and he certainly wasn't going to take any chances. That aside, Spock wouldn't let him... the Vulcan was stead-fast, as set on their deal as steel and iron.

But then again... it hadn't been Jim having to watch his partner and lover almost bleed out during a grotesque battle to the death for another's entertainment. If it had been Spock, Jim probably wouldn't be so tempted in this moment to break their rule either.

"I suppose you'll be up before me, so I'm going to schedule the next check-in to be in four hours after Reeves gets back. Does that give you enough time to rest?" Jim offered.

"Four hours is an adequate amount of time," the Vulcan remarked, reluctantly peeling his coat off and laying it out on the edge of the bed, dressing down quickly and efficiently in order to add more layers to his attire. He redressed, looking a little thicker about the limbs and middle from the additional bulk. "Should I wake you in six hours?"

"Sure." Sighing, Jim rubbed his eyes, his fingers stiff against his lids. "That way, you'll be the first to test out those taps and tell me if the water comes out warm or not." He smirked, turning back out into the hallway and retiring to his room to change his clothes as well. His fire needed some prodding to swell again, and he added a second log from the basket beside the hearth, shoring up the grate to keep the sparks at bay before warming himself front and back before the flames. He was flushed when he put his jacket back on, checking the time again and wondering what was taking Reeves so long.

Circling about his room, his eyes kept catching on the portrait over his fireplace. He was unable to keep a sense of dread out of his chest every time his eyes caught on those of the woman and child. It was a disturbing painting; the more he looked at it the more detail he saw, like how the thimble on the woman's right hand was stained red. Or how her painted lipstick was smeared slightly, or how her feet were bent at an impossibly uncomfortable angle. Or...how the toys the child was absently fondling throughout his fear were nothing but gnarled pieces of wood with sad slabs of paint strewn across their flat sides. He was kind of glad that walls of houses couldn't speak, because he wasn't sure he'd want to know the history of the families that had passed through this century old dwelling.

Fifteen minutes later, Reeves was pounding on the door again, spilling into the mansion past Jim dragging two anti-grav units behind him. He deposited them against the wall in the foyer, bidding his commanding officers a good night shortly after. Spock and Jim distribute the portables throughout the lower floor and Jim took one up to his room, calling goodnight down the hall to Spock before closing the door to his bedroom and straightening out the thermal blankets across his bed.

After deciding he really didn't want to sleep on sheets he didn't know the age of, or the cleanliness of, he simply lay down atop the entire duvet, the thermal blankets piled over him, their heating mechanism switched on so they would cycle through short bursts of blessed warmth while he slept. He lay there, the curtains of the four-poster bed all drawn stubbornly back, his hands free and above the blankets, listening to the wind outside beating snow against the window panes. It was almost calming, the sound, the swish and hiss of ice and frost dashing against the glass, and he talked himself into closing his eyes, lulled by the orange flickering glow of the flames in the fireplace.

 

He didn’t know the hour when he awoke, but the darkness in his room told him it must still be the middle of the night. Jim was still exhausted, but something had woken him and, rolling over across the bed, it took his eyes a moment to adjust and for him to realize that the blackness he was seeing was because the curtains around the ugly bed were all drawn tightly shut around him. 

All three open sides to the room were cordoned off with heavy, thick drapes of a deep blue and he flapped a hand out from under his thermal blanket, ignoring the immediate bite of chill as he did so to smack the curtains aside. Struggling to sit up under the weight of his blankets, he wrapped his arms around himself and slid off the edge of the bed. It was still dark in his room and he turned in the dying glow of the fire to stare at the curtains of his bed. Who the hell had closed them, and why? Had Spock done it? Perhaps the Vulcan had thought it would keep him warmer if the drapes were all drawn to keep the heat in. Logical, but Spock knew very well that Jim liked to be able to see what was around him at all times.

Frowning, Jim slid the curtains back to rest behind the metal hook nailed into the closest pillar to his bed frame. He pushed them all back to their rightful places, opening his bed back up to the chill of the room. Bending before the hearth, he was about to shove another log in behind the grate when he heard a creaking somewhere down the hall. He paused, listening, reminding himself that this was an old stone house, it was bound to make some terrible noises; it had stood long enough to possess that right. But this sound was different, because the creaks came measured and uniform, as if someone heavy was treading up the hallway toward Jim's bedroom from Spock's end of the hall.

Dropping the log onto the embers, Jim breathed the fire back to life and dropped the grate back into place again. Straightening, he cocked his head to listen. Maybe Spock couldn't sleep under these chilly circumstances and was simply roaming the house, getting the lay and history of it. 

"Spock?" Jim waited, then heard the steps again, heavy and thumping and causing all the wood in the floor to groan and squeak. Getting no reply to his call, Jim pulled his thick coat out of his duffle and donned it quickly, wrapping it tightly shut about himself and creeping toward his door.

Spock must be right outside his bedroom, because the footsteps sounded even louder now, so Jim opened his door, slowly in case he startled Spock, but when he glanced out into the hallway the space was empty. There was no sleepy Vulcan shivering in all his layers, walking about to keep his body temperature regulated. "Spock?" Jim called again, softly, knowing that the Vulcan would hear him if he was awake, but he got no reply and the door to Spock's bedroom seemed firmly shut.

Frowning, Jim closed his door, the footsteps having ceased and now leaving him with another odd conundrum. Was there someone else in the house? The thought brought to mind the tower at the end of the hall; neither of them had gone up there to investigate and any manner of beast or individual could be up there. He didn't really relish the thought of going up there at the moment though, his toes frozen through his socks and his face frosty simply from the bite of cold air drafting through the house. He remembered what his grandma had said about their brick house out in the country:

_"It sure gets hot in the summers, cooks like a dutch oven all bricked up and trapping the heat," She had muttered, wrapping a thick blanket around her grandson swaddled so thick his face was barely visible about all her homespun, "but I've never been in a colder place during the winters, Jimmy. Stone holds onto both cold and heat like a mama goose holds onto her goslings."_

He shivered anew at the memory, a small part of him wishing he were living in that one instead of this present, because at least he wouldn't be expected to do more than shovel the driveway before he could make a snowman.

Dragging himself back across the room, Jim cast the painting above the mantlepiece a wary glance before climbing back into his nest of covers, wrapping himself deeply in their heated bliss and weathering the shudders throughout his body until they ceased, bringing with them another heavy wave of exhaustion.

 

"Hey, were you up and about last night?" Jim asked, eyeing Spock from over his cup of rationed coffee, the two of them seated awkwardly at the end of the long dining room table. They had elected to sit here, given that Jim had made a mess putting their breakfasts together at the kitchen island and they would rather not stand in what seemed to be the draftiest room in the whole house.

Spock blinked somewhat owlishly at him from his spot across from Jim, his fingers wrapped tightly around a mug of tea, the beverage having yet to dispel the tinted flush of cold from the tips of the Vulcan's fingers. "I was not, not until Reeves arrived at the door and I met him briefly."

Oh, right, their check-in. How had Jim slept completely through that whole exchange? He knew the house was big, but his room was right next to the stairs…

"So you... didn't close the curtains of my bed last night?" Jim asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion, poking at a fried slab of local meat on his plate that tasted like it had been drug over a salt lick a dozen times before being preserved. "Twice?" That morning, Jim had awoken to darkness once more, but only found it to be his curtains again, closed to the rest of the bedroom. It had been odd and somewhat disconcerting. Because if Spock hadn't done it, and Jim certainly hadn't done it and wasn't prone to sleepwalking, then the only other logical explanation could be that someone else was in the house and thought to play a trick on him.

"I did not," Spock remarked, tilting his head, probably wondering what had gotten into his Captain to be suggesting such a heinous thing.

"Reeves didn't come upstairs?"

"He did not, for he was rather anxious to be back on the ship, and has repeatedly told me that this house gives him... 'the creeps',” Spock repeated, arching his brows at the obviously illogical and emotional verdict delivered by their security officer.

"'The creeps', huh?" Jim muttered, having thought the very same thing upon their arrival on the property the day before. But this was Cenlarian hospitality, and even if it was sorely lacking, it was still shades better than the so-called 'hospitality' of some other races of people they had been subject to over the past few years of the mission.

"Regardless of the ambient temperature of the home, I slept fairly well." Setting his mug of cooling tea aside, Spock abandoned his minimal attempts at warming his fingers in lieu of donning his heated gloves instead.

"There's this... rather unsettling painting in my room. I can't stop looking at it," Jim muttered, casting Spock a sheepish glance. "I can understand why Reeves thinks this place is creepy. All the superstitious and ritualistic habits of the Cenlarians...their more archaic modes of living due to the pride in their mining endeavors," he remarked, standing up and collecting their plates, breakfast for the most part consumed.

"It is the same in my room," Spock admitted as he rose, "though I simply find the framed piece above my fireplace to be rather...illogical." Following Jim into the kitchen, he assisted with the rinsing and drying of their dishes.

"Mind if I take a look at it for myself?" Jim asked, and the Vulcan made no protest as they departed from the kitchen together, filing into Spock's room at the end of the upstairs hallway.

Spock's room was of a different theme, and in a way, Jim had to laugh, because not only was it the least complimentary in tastes towards that of a Vulcan, but it had to be the ugliest room in the whole house. The floors were of the same wood throughout the house, but the rug that guarded it was a rather alarming shade of orange, though dulled with a layer of dust. The walls where there was plaster were painted a dark green, while the far western wall was completely stone, spread out from the facade of the fireplace and protruding mantlepiece.

Throughout the room, the walls were decorated with all manner of beasts on display, some of which were posed in truly frightening forms with sharp tusks showing and cobwebs hanging like spittle from the creatures’ open jaws. There was some kind of winged creature nailed to a plaque with it's wings stretched outward from the wall. A second plaque adorned the wall over the bed; a creature similar in appearance to a bear, though instead of just two eyes, it had nine. Many smaller beasts embellish the walls with their deaths and Jim grimaced, "A tableau of death and destruction...I didn't happen to see all this last night."

"It was rather dark in the house," Spock agreed. "I do realize that most races kill beasts such as these as sport, but the sheer number of preserved carcases on display is somewhat alarming. I had not considered this attribute in the Cenlarian people, for they seem so restrained and analytical."

"Guess you can't judge a book by it's cover. Whoever owns this house likes to do his fair share of hunting." Turning about the center of the room, Jim's eyes fell on the painting Spock had mentioned down at breakfast. Cocking his head to the side, he slowly approached the fireplace, tipping his chin up to get a better look at the large piece. It was... strange.

In it was what appeared to be a man, though he had no discernable features about him, aside from a single red slash across the lower part of his face that might indicate the presence of a mouth. 

There was a grizzly white beard, and an odd yellow hat on his head, with the rest of his face being a swirl of mass and color that appeared almost like scars. It was almost as if the artist just took their brush and smeared away at the paint before it could dry. Slashes across the face were shadowed, hinting that perhaps there used to be eyes, a nose, and ears at some point; but they had gone, lost forever.

"Huh..." Jim grunted, his hands sliding down to prop on his hips, eyes squinting at the mass of color and structure, as if doing so might suddenly bring the whole thing into focus somehow. "Maybe he...had some sort of disease?"

"Unlikely, given the fact that no such disease has ever swept the face of this planet. Indeed, with its temperatures throughout the year, very little disease can flourish here, only those which develop from host to host."

"Bloodborne illnesses, you mean," Jim murmured, folding his arms across his chest. "Even more...creepy, then," he grumbled, deciding that the Cenlarians had a strange taste in art.

Disturbing art aside, Jim was still somewhat bothered by the constant nagging thought of who had closed his bed curtains last night? He couldn't rule out the possibility of there being another occupant of the mansion, so Jim stepped out into the hall, looking over at the door to the stairs leading up the tower. He froze, brows furrowing. "Spock?" He called back to his first officer, who emerged from the bedroom a moment later, peering past Jim's shoulder toward the door to the tower, now ajar. "Did you open that door last night?"

"I... did not," came Spock's third denial of the day, although he seemed more disturbed than politely curious this time, because he had watched Jim close that very door the night before, complaining of the icy draft that wafted down those stairs.

Together, they softly approached the open door, skirting the wall up to the doorjamb until Jim could stick his head out and peer up the dimly lit stairs. Straightening up a moment later, he thumped his head lightly back against the wall and pursed his lips. "I hate, absolutely hate being without communication to the ship. They could just scan this room and tell me if there were any living beings up there..." He muttered petulantly, reaching instead for his utility belt about his waist, having to struggle past the edges of his heavy coat to get to his phaser and switching it to stun. 

Spock followed suit and the two of them crept up the first few stairs. Jim, holding his hand out, halts Spock as he listens past the dying creaks of their own footsteps. He heard nothing, nothing but the deafening silence of a quiet house and the wind outside.

"Shit..." He whispered, eyes flickering shut for a moment. "This is stupid, it's probably nothing." Gritting his teeth, he shrugged the feeling of unease aside and charged up the steps, deciding it would be better to take an intruder by surprise rather than give them a chance to hear them and react.

Jim burst through the door at the top of the stairs, nearly tumbling over his own feet and all sorts of detritus scattered about the circular floor of the tower when he stumbled into the center of the room, phaser up and ready. There was no one in sight, the room quiet except for a fluttering of some poor winged creature trying to escape the cold up in the tall rafters and beams of the roof.

Lowering his phaser, Jim let out a long breath and slid his free hand back through his hair, turning around and glancing at the three narrow windows letting in weak rays of sun.

"Jim," Spock's voice directed his attention toward the floor, and what Jim saw had him stepping back to the outer perimeter of the room, flattening himself against the stone wall.

"What...the fuck-" He breathed, his heart clenching in his chest with old fear, the fear of a child who watched scary holos and heard terrible stories from the big kids.

Scrawled about the whole circumference of the floor was a diagram of some dubious origin, and Jim began to recognize it as he kicked a few half melted candles aside, sending them rolling into the dozens upon dozens of others, all charred and dusty around the edge of the room. "It's a pentagram," Jim scoffed, "creepy...demonic...hoo-doo shit," Jim grumbled, though a cold and icy finger of unease wriggled up his spine. They shouldn't be here, and something was pushing Jim to pack them up and go. This room was... heavy.

"I am familiar with the ancient religious image," Spock responded, his steps taking him about the edge of the closed circle, "though I had believed they drew such symbols with chalk or salt...not," the Vulcan frowned deeply and stooped, sliding his fingers over the dried tracks on the wood floor, scraping at a few loose flakes and rubbing them between his fingers, "blood."

"Blood?" Jim gaped, "This is fucking blood?"

"It would appear to be so, though I do not know what sort of blood without my tricorder."

Jim shivered and set his phaser back at his utility belt, "The Cenlarians don't seem like the type to do ritualistic sacrifices...superstitious or not."

"Given the fact that we have only personally met a small handful of the population, this could very well be the workings of a singularity," Spock argued, folding his hands behind him, probably feeling somewhat at a loss without his tricorder.

"Right, just another weirdo, every race has them..." Jim mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to tame the hairs there to quit standing on end. The longer he looked down at the pentagram though, the more nagging that feeling got until he rolled his tense shoulders and kicked melted stumps of candles out of his path toward the door. "I'm just glad this person isn't still here..."

They regrouped in the hall where Jim firmly shut the door leading up those stairs, going so far as to drag a chair up from the dining room downstairs to wedge under the doorknob to keep it locked in place. "There...shouldn't be budging now," he smirked, smacking his closed fist against the door panel with a loud thump and nearly jumping clean out of his skin when it was answered by a second, louder thumping, until he realized the sound was coming from the front door downstairs.

They let Reeves in, who was finally dressed as warmly as possible, his hands shoved deeply into the heated pockets of his thick coat. "Checking in, sir." He reported, his blue eyes wandering warily about the foyer. "Everything alright?"

"Fine, Ensign," Jim replied, a slight smile on his lips, "hardly dangerous enough here to warrant your unease."

Reeves had the good nature to look sheepish as he ducked his head, gaining control of his darting eyes and clenched fists. "Sorry, sir... can't help it. This place is just so-..." He squints and Jim helps him out:

"Unpleasant."

"Yes...unpleasant," Reeves amended, casting a glance at Spock, who had retrieved his tricorder and was tuning it for the day while he leaned up against the bannister alongside the stairs. "Any new orders I am to relay, sir?"

"Yes, I'd like a full biological scan of this property, if possible. I'm...curious about something." Jim commanded, his tone straightening Reeves right up out of his wariness.

"Parameters, sir?"

"All biological life...any strange readings at all, I'd like to know about it. The Cenlarians are extremely superstitious, and I'd like to know what makes this property so special to them."

"Yes, sir."

"We'll be in meetings for most of the day, Ensign, so send the report along with our next check-in an hour before dusk."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, and Reeves...?" Jim forestalled the younger man, even as it was clear how anxious Reeves was to get out of the house, his hand already on the front door, "how's my ship?"

Reeves' uneasy look faded into a slow smile and he ducked his head, "She's good, sir. Maintaining orbit, Mr. Scott is working on those upgrades you approved last week."

"Good. If anything changes, I want it brought to my attention immediately." He closed and locked the front door behind Reeves and brushed a curtain back from a window in an adjoining room to watch as Reeves' form shimmered out in the snowy yard and disappeared from view. He was somewhat envious and hoped that these talks wouldn’t drag on for much longer and they might come to a mutual agreement with the Cenlarians. The sooner he was up and off this rock, the better.

 

They were three days into the treaty meetings with the Cenlarians and Jim felt as if they had not made any headway. The stipulations had been laid out, and both sides had made their demands, however the Cenlarians were asking for something in particular that Jim was finding it difficult to swallow. There was no way in the whole solar system that the Federation would agree to grant those demands, not with the risks they imposed.

"I don't know what to think anymore, Spock," Jim muttered as the two of them, buffeted by the wind of a new storm front that seemed to be brewing, stumbled in through the front door of their stone-cold mansion.

"About the demands of the Cenlarians, or about the pressure by Starfleet to assure this mission is successful?" Spock asked as they both reluctantly removed their coats, hating to be bereft of the added warmth but necessary because they were soaked through from the snow. Jim took both their coats and set them out by the fire they had kept lit in the living room, hanging them over the hearth to dry, with melting snow dripping off their edges onto the stone.

"Both, actually." Heaving a heavy sigh, Jim crouched before the flames and rubbed his hands together, glancing up at the Vulcan as he joined him in soaking up the warmth. "There is no way the Federation is going to grant ships to these people. Just no way." Jim shook his head, running his now warm hands back over his face and through his hair in frustration. "Not only does it further break their precious Prime Directive, but we could literally be handing the Cenlarians their destruction. Even with training and knowledge, it would be like handing a super-colossal fusion bomb to an infant. No sooner would they reach the stars than they would be snuffed out, especially with how close they are to the Neutral Zone."

Spock nodded in silent agreement, for he had voiced the same concerns to Jim before they had even left the meeting hall that afternoon, the futility of their cause easily read in his two dark eyes. At least, it was an easy read for Jim, who had seen the Vulcan exhibit the same minute details of resignation before. The Cenlarians seemed adamant, but it was up to Jim to get them to back down. But how?

"If we tell them that though, they'll run on the defense; who knows what they might take for an insult, and if we make everyone else seem like a threat, we might also cast suspicion on ourselves. They’ll want to know how different we are from the Empire, from the Romulans,... Klingons." Getting to his feet, Jim folded his arms over his chest, hating how as soon as he stepped away from the fireplace, the warmth of the flames seemed almost to be sucked clean out of him. As if some vast vacuum of frozen malice took special pleasure from sapping all heat out of his body. It hadn't taken them more than their first night to realize that the space heaters only did so much, their heat only radiating a few feet away from the units. Jim had thought they were malfunctioning, but after they had spent some time inspecting them all, they could find no fault in the mechanisms.

"We have explained the Klingon's tactics, how they will seek to take over this planet without any agreements or regulation," Spock added, his lean fingers tucked under his arms as well as he followed Jim out into the hall and through to the kitchen. "The Romulans would behave in much the same manner."

"Yeah, but Vex..." Jim shook his head, putting a teapot onto the gas stove and stooping to open the trap and shove a lit match into the grate beneath the burner, watching the kindling catch fire. "I don't think he really grasps the kind of violence we were hinting at. Anyway, if we talk too much about it, we'll just seem like doomsday preachers." He sighed, waving the match to and fro in his hand before discarding it into the sink.

"Perhaps another strategy is in order."

Jim snorted, "I'd love one if I could think of one. We've done all the talking up of the Federation as I can get away with, at least without making us seem two-faced." Spreading his hands, he turned to Spock, brows creased and eyes ringed by dark circles. "I mean, think about it Spock. We show up in this massive ship, bigger than two of their tribal towns put together with a population to rival it. Big guns, dangerous circumstances, they aren't stupid... they know we could blow them right out of the water. I'm... really pissed off with that Captain." Bracing his hands upon the hard surface of the kitchen island, he hung his head, "Captain Harris, or whatever his name was, of the U.S.S. Condor. Pompous son-of-a-bitch... showing these people around his ship like it was a goddamn tour of an amusement park. Yeah, that'll put them right into your back pocket... idiot," he groused, a scowl on his face.

"That was a gross oversight on the Captain's part, yes." Spock nearly seemed to sigh too, his shoulders dropping and his stance slumping almost wearily. Neither of them had been sleeping well; Jim had asked Spock just that morning if he was going crazy, or if the Vulcan had been hearing and seeing things at night too. It had taken a full on argument to even get the Vulcan to admit that he had heard footsteps...and he had known they weren't Jim's.

Not to mention, the chair that Jim had wedged under the third floor tower door had been moved every morning, pushed aside and the door standing ajar. Jim had seriously considered nailing the damn thing shut himself, but what would the owners say if they came back to that sight?

"Maybe we should just go back up to the ship, get a few nights of rest up there, then come back and resume talks..." Jim suggested, even knowing that they couldn’t do that. They were stuck down here until the job was done, otherwise the Cenlarians might think they were shifty or rude. "Shit..." he hissed, startled when the kettle on the stove began to shriek. He moved it aside and stifled the flame of the burner with a nearby pot lid.

"If you wish to do so, I can remain here to occupy the house, so that if anyone inquires I might simply explain that-" Spock began, clearly trying to give Jim the out he so desperately wanted.

Jim cut him off, shaking his head. "No, no, no... and look like I might be plotting something nefarious? Right, no. That's not going to work. We just have to get this done, whether that means we wake up early tomorrow morning and stay until dusk to hash things out, or we bring the troupe of Cenlarian Tribal Council up to the Enterprise and figure out plan B."

Spock arched a brow, and his distaste for the second option was evident in the way he folded his arms tightly across his chest, watching Jim dunk little sachets of coffee and tea into mugs for each of them. "Then how would you be acting in any more a logical manner than Captain Harrison?"

"Hey, I never said it was my first choice... only an act of pure desperation is going to make me do that." Pressing the fingers of one hand into his eyes, Jim groaned, "I just want one night of uninterrupted sleep, would that be too much to ask for?"

There was a long pause during which both Jim and Spock shared a brief look that had them both glancing away, Spock gazing into his tea as Jim slid it across the counter toward him, and Jim's gaze shifting out toward the cellar door.

"I could...always assist you," Spock murmured, his voice so soft Jim barely heard it. The Vulcan's fingers were steepled around his mug of tea, tendrils of steam from it curling up toward his face.

Jim's eyes softened and he regretted his complaints, for of course Spock wasn’t enjoying this planet any more than he was. Along with the drastic temperatures and constant meals of meat being served to them at meetings, Jim's attitude really didn't need to be added into the mix of unpleasantness. "Thanks Spock, but I'll be fine," he murmured, flashing Spock a rueful smile, for who knew if they were being watched here. His fingers curled into a tight fist around the handle of his mug, and he barely restrained himself from reaching out and bestowing an affectionate and reassuring touch to the back of Spock's hand.

"How about...when we get off this godforsaken rock, we send out a request for shore leave and find a nice warm, relaxing planet to touch down on. Yeah?" Jim offered, "hell knows we need it, and the crew too." He muttered around the rim of his mug, scalding his tongue on the boiling hot black coffee. Grimacing, he took it with him back out into the hall, followed shortly by his Vulcan First Officer.

“I concur, shore leave would indeed be beneifical.” Spock agreed.

Upstairs, Jim glanced toward the open door to the library and cocked his head, wandering across the hall and into the dusty room. "Did you close all the curtains in here?" He asked, hearing Spock's faint negative reply from the bottom of the stairs. He appeared in the doorway a moment later, tea steaming under his chin, a quizzical tilt to his brows which showed Jim there was no way the Vulcan had just simply forgotten doing such a thing. "Right, well...pretty sure they were wide open a few days ago." Funny he hadn't noticed this before...then again, had the door even been open? 

"This is ridiculous, there is no one in the house but us, unless they're sending some sucker here to clean up after us when we're in the meetings."

"That is a possibility, for a few of my belongings were misplaced the other evening," Spock pointed out, this revelation making Jim stop in the middle of the hallway and grasp his arm, forestalling his friend and lover from continuing into his room. "Wait, you didn't tell me that this morning. What things were moved?"

Spock pursed his lips, their thin line disappearing between his teeth, a shade of reluctance keeping his words at bay. Jim squeezed his arm, imploring him, "Tell me." It was an order, not a request any longer.

Shifting his fingers about his warm mug, Spock looked a little uncomfortable, his eyes turning toward the end of the hall and sticking there, refusing to meet Jim's gaze, "A few articles of clothing... my tricorder, and all but one of the nutritional bars Doctor McCoy insisted I bring to the planet with me."

Jim's brows furrowed, studying Spock's face in profile, tilting to try and catch the Vulcan's gaze. "Where were they?" He asked. If someone was going through their belongings, it had to be happening while they were away.

"It is illogical, there is no logical explanation for why they were misplaced, and yet they were not where I placed them the night before," Spock shook his head, "and there were no intruders or nocturnal visitors last night. I would have heard them."

"They were in your bag last night, and yet they were put somewhere else this morning?" Spock's silence was answer enough and Jim squeezed the Vulcan's arm again, enough to get him to meet his eyes finally, and Jim was dismayed to note a sliver of shame and embarrassment in those eyes.

"I would not fault you for not believing me, for I have no solid evidence to prove my claims, however I am positive I would not have been so forgetful to have placed my underclothes about the horns of the beasts in my room or my tricorder beneath my bed... or the nutrition bars within the drawers of the desk last night," Spock defended, with Jim shaking his head.

"No, of course I believe you, it's just...how else could they have gotten there then?"

"I do not know," Spock answered, and for once, Jim wished he wasn't the only one capable of flights of fancy. His imagination was trying to run wild and he was having a hard time keeping it under wraps.

Releasing Spock's arm, Jim glanced down the hall and noticed what Spock had been so intently studying during their conversation. He straightened up immediately, his teeth grinding together in frustration. "Fucking hell!" He bellowed, marching down the hall and stooping to grip the leg of the upended chair on the floor, the door to the tower hanging wide open this time. Clasping the edge of the door, he went to slam it, but stopped, muscles in his arm bunched tightly with his annoyance. Slowly, he straightened, and it must have been the sudden pallor of his face that caused Spock to quickly join him, their two faces peering up at the darkened stairwell.

Jim was frozen still, as was Spock as they both watched a small red rubber ball bounce slowly down the steps, as if just tipped from the top landing, tapping on the wood floor at their feet before coming to a stop against the tip of Jim's boot. Blinking down at it, Jim was the last to move as Spock jerked forward up the stairs, his hand at his utility belt, Jim a moment behind as they charged up the slanted steps and about the corner. Spock was butted up against the closed door, his shoulder pressed into it as it seemed to be stuck. Both of them rammed their sides against it until it gave. Jim fell into the room but Spock stepped around him, feet kicking spent candles everywhere.

"Jim!"

Spock's alarmed voice jolted Jim's head around to look from where he was staggering to his feet again, the sound of chattering and chittering winged beasts making him swat at the air about his head, ducking and weaving. What he saw in the low light of the room were dark stains all about the floor. His feet were slipping and sliding in it all, a substance sticky like tar but hot through the soles of his boots.

"What the fuck!?" He exclaimed in terror, "light! Get out a light!" In seconds, Spock had his phaser out and the guiding light upon the barrel flashed on, nearly blinding them both as they peer about their feet, shielding their eyes and heads from the many flapping creatures suddenly trying to roost up here.

Jim caught a glimpse of deep crimson red, flashes of stained candles strewn about them, wicked markings in dark ink, feathers... and then the room was dark again and Jim was skirting the walls, sliding and slipping about in what he was beginning to realize looked like blood. He was panting, gasping and hoarsely calling, "Spock! Spock, where are you!" His fingers hit against a switch and he pressed it, blinded by the sudden shock of brilliant light that filled the small circular space from a single bare bulb hanging from the lofty ceilings.

Whipping his head around, Jim squinted through the glare and spots in his vision, but only saw Spock, crowded up against the wall opposite him, his phaser still in his hand but the light on it out. He glanced about them as well, eyes wide, the both of them breathless.

"What...where-?" Jim plastered his hands back against the wall behind him, looking at the floor at their feet, which was still marked with that rusty brown pentagram...but nothing else. The stubs of candles were still scattered from their scrambling feet, but there was no deep, sticky pool of blood and there were no flapping wings of creatures and beaks and chattering about their ears. 

Silence...

Spock glanced at his phaser, as if just noticing it for the first time, his words slow and full of disbelief, "It's drained... all power, gone."

Straightening up from his slump against the wall, Jim skirted the pentagram and made for the door, shaking his head emphatically, "Let's get the fuck outta here," he gasped, grasping Spock's wrist as the Vulcan cut across the room to meet him and they both jostle and fly down the stairs and back out into the hallway. Jim slammed the door behind them and wedged the chair up under the doorknob again, even though he knew it wouldn’t do any good.

Together, the two of them stood staring at the door; the quiet in the whole house deafening, save for the howling wind outside. Glancing around, Jim saw that the rubber ball from before was nowhere to be seen and he licked his lips, not even sure any more if it had ever been there in the first place. 

"Do you...do you think we're under the influence of...I don't know," Jim gesticulated wildly, trying to keep fear and panic out of his voice but having to swallow down lungfuls of air to get his heart to stop racing, "some kind of drug? Hallucinogen? Spell or something, curse?!" Jim proposed, his voice growing louder and higher with every suggestion.

"I... do not know," Spock murmured, his voice uncommonly subdued.

Jim whirled on him and shoved the Vulcan's shoulders until they knocked against the wall, rattling a picture in it's frame beside them. Spock's eyes widen as if Jim's sudden violence had woken him from his subconscious. "I'm so sick and fucking tired of you telling me you don't know!!" Jim bellowed, anger raging like a rushing, swollen river through his veins and making his fists clench. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to shove his fist right through that-

Hurt, distinct and palpable in brown eyes sapped all the strength and anger out of Jim in one moment. He sagged and stumbled back, putting space between himself and Spock; the Vulcan rigid and unsteady, propped against the opposite wall. Jim looked down at his hands, letting his fingers relax and his fists uncurl. What the hell had he just been thinking? Had he really wanted to hurt Spock? All because of some weird and scary shit going on? They should be sticking together, not tearing each other apart…

"Spock..." Jim's voice was small, regretful and broken and he hated how the sound of it made Spock flinch. It was obvious the Vulcan hadn't been expecting this kind of rage, not from his captain...and not from his trusted mate and lover.

Sorrow leached the last of Jim's strength and he slumped against the opposite wall, sliding down to sit against the baseboard, his knees drawn up and his arms drooping across them. His head lowered in shame, self-hatred blooming like clotted mud and stains in the pit of his stomach. How ugly was the human emotion anger, and how destructive. Before today, he'd never even entertained the thought of hurting Spock, not even out of some misplaced necessity or twisted sexual foreplay. This had been pure, unadulterated hatred and anger. But he didn't hate Spock, didn't want to see him bleed or injured, especially by his own hand. So why had he almost done it?

"I'm so sorry... I don't know what-" Jim swallowed, his voice cracking shamefully, "what came over me. I was just... so angry." He frowned, squinting down at the floor, his hands cradling his skull as it throbbed with a terrible ache. "I've never been so angry in my life, it was almost like all my hatred and fury over the years just came up all of the sudden and-" He winced, unable to finish his thought out loud, _almost made me hurt you._ But it went without saying and one glance at Spock told Jim he'd seen it plain and clear in his Captain's visage. Jim had probably looked damn near murderous, red faced and enraged.

"You... need rest," Spock remarked slowly, straightening up from the wall, his movements cautious and slow as he shifted forward to stand in front of Jim, looking down at him, "we both do."

Had he just broken years of trust? Had Jim just ruined the one good intimate relationship he could count out of his entire life? The slender-fingered hand extended to him from above said otherwise, but Jim was reluctant to take it, instead wrapping his hand around Spock's wrist and letting the Vulcan haul him to his feet. Jim released him, but Spock didn’t retreat, instead studying Jim's face and eyes, searching for more violence maybe…

"You know I would never intentionally hurt you, right? I wouldn't be able to stand myself if I did, it was just like something had come over me, you know?" Jim endeavored to explain, hopeful and fearful eyes trailing over Spock's face, searching for any tell or sign that the Vulcan wasn't now mistrustful of him. "It was like something had possessed me and was driving me to do it and I know that sounds like utter bullshit but it's the truth, I wasn't even mad when we came down here. In fact, I was scared shitless because we both know what we saw but it wasn't there, right, when I turned on the light? It was just-"

"Jim." Spock interrupted, brown eyes a center of calm that Jim drew heavily on, feeling centered himself as the Vulcan spoke, "I believe what you say... however, what you are explaining sounds remarkably like what your culture suggests a possession is comprised of."

"A what?" Jim deadpanned, blinking. Did Spock think bringing up pop-culture and ghosts and goblins would make him feel better right now?

"A possession," Spock repeated, "the complete and total loss of control over one's body or will, sometimes simultaneously, to the will and control of another being. Some refer to the practice of hypnosis as being a type of possession, given that the hypnotist is controlling the other by directing them. In this case, however, it would seem you were possessed by something not in attendance."

"Spock, if you're suggesting I was possessed by a ghost or curse, you're out of your Vulcan mind. In which case, we're returning to the ship to have you checked out, because maybe the cold is having more of an affect on you than you've been letting on." Jim frowned, a shiver rolling through his frame. This time, not from the cold, but from the thought that Spock was waxing theoretical here, and seemingly without logic to back himself up. "You realize what you're saying is...illogical?"

"Illogical indeed, however once one dismisses all rational and logical explanation, whatever remains, however improbable...must be the truth."

"Did you just quote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to me?" Jim blinked, taken aback.

One slender brow arched and Spock nodded succinctly, "Indeed."

Taking a long breath, Jim exhaled through pursed lips and shook his head, "I don't know what to say, other than I don't think I was possessed by a ghost, that's ridiculous. There are no such thing."

"Perhaps on Earth, but perhaps on other planets, such anomalies are more common," Spock suggested, causing Jim to cast him a shrewd eye.

"I don't believe what you're saying right now...I think you're more sleep deprived than I am," Jim retorted, turning to go into his bedroom across the hall, hearing Spock quote himself by saying:

"I can remain awake and proficient for another twenty-one hours, Jim, Vulcans do not require as much rest as Humans do."

"I know, I know..." He muttered, "Goodnight, Spock. I'll take care of first check-in." He closed his door, hearing Spock's close a moment later, feeling somewhat sad and annoyed that because of their pact he cannot endeavor to make up with his Vulcan mate. He'd much rather reassure himself he hadn't just fucked up their relationship, but until they were back in the privacy of their joined quarters, he was going to have to run on faith here.

Over the course of those earlier three days, without any incident, Jim had reduced their check-ins with Ensign Reeves down to twice a night, with him and Spock alternating meeting the Ensign at the door. It seemed that this planet, for all it's beasts on display in Spock's room, was fairly peaceful. Or, at least, such dangers seemed less active during the winter months, for there had been no forays or struggles in the night, no signs of actual malice... that is, until tonight. Jim wasn't convinced that what they had seen was even real, let alone a threat to them. It was sure as hell creepy, though, and Ensign Reeves was damn well not going to want to come into the house if he heard about this one, although Jim was positive it had either been some sort of hallucination or mirage, or even a trick. If the Cenlarians were the trickster type, he wouldn't put it past them to orchestrate some sort of tactic to scare or warn them into agreeing with their terms to the treaty.

Restarting the fire in his room, Jim sat by it for a time, staring about the room, wondering if any of his own things seemed out of place. But everything was as he had left it that morning, his bag at the foot of the bed and the heater in the center of the room, his blankets on the bed pulled all the way forward over the pillows. Even the damn bed curtains were still pinned back as he'd done the night before, having awoken to them all closed again some time past the midnight hour.

Rubbing his eyes with his fists, Jim stifled a yawn and stared into the flames. Something urged him to get up, to pull all the curtains about his windows shut and he did so, sneezing as a cloud of dust wafted off the curtains into his face as he shuffled them. Feeling somewhat better that he at least couldn’t be spied upon through his windows, Jim pulled his outer clothes off and swapped them for a second layer of his under clothes, shoving his feet into another pair of socks which left his feet looking like two squares because they were so bundled up.

Sitting there on the edge of the bed, he looked off into the flames of the fireplace again, feeling beyond exhausted, his elbows braced against his knees and his head hanging low between his shoulder blades. He was about to flip over onto his back and burrow beneath the sheets when he felt an icy grip wrap like twin vices around his ankles and pull him so hard it knocked his legs into the edge of the bed and sent him flying face-first into the floor. He cried out in shock and alarm, legs kicking, heart pounding and blood rushing in his ears as all his instincts screamed at him that he'd been caught and that something was pulling him under the bed. He thrashed against what he saw, which were blackened hands like big mitts around his feet and he kicked savagely at them, all the while screaming, "Spock! Spock!!"

Pounding feet out in the hallway gave Jim that last shred of strength to break the hold of the hands upon him, rolling over onto his stomach and scrambling up onto his feet again just as his door burst open and Spock was in the room, sans phaser this time, instead armed with what looked to be some kind of tomahawk that he had raised and ready. Jim scrabbled across the room toward him, all the while looking back over his shoulder at the bed, waiting to see something or someone come crawling out from beneath it, but the room was silent except for the crackling of the flames and both his and Spock's ragged and panicked breathing.

"Are you... are you well?" Spock asked, somewhat breathless, his eyes surveying the room for threats, same as Jim's.

Jim nodded absently, standing slightly behind his taller First Officer and staring at the dark slit beneath the bed, lifting his hand to point there, shivering, "There was this... these hands, they pulled me off the bed. They were trying to pull me _under_ the bed," he explained, falling into a crouch and trying to peer under the bed from the other side of the room. Spock marched over to it and, instead of crouching to look beneath the bed, he simply fit his hand beneath the bottom edge of the frame and lifted the whole heavy thing up a fraction, cocking his head to get a look beneath.

Jim tried not to gape, though he felt a little safer and more grounded at the sight of his Vulcan mate lifting a heavy four-poster bed by the lip of it like it was a dollhouse toy.

"I don't see anything, Jim," Spock murmured, frowning as he lowered the bed back down onto all four legs. "Are you sure you were not experiencing a dream?"

"I was awake," Jim snapped and Spock fell silent, causing Jim to will his frustration and fear away. He didn't feel as angry as before, no murderous thoughts were plundering his confused head, and yet he didn't want to take his anger and frustration out on Spock. Taking a calming breath, he snagged his pillow from the bed, giving it a wide berth as he did so before declaring, "Well I'm sure as hell not sleeping in here tonight, not with something trying to kidnap me under my own damn bed. C'mon... we'll bunk together."

Pausing in the open doorway, he cast Spock a look as the Vulcan lingered behind and the two of them shared a look, for sharing a bed was a breach in their pact, but Jim shrugged his shoulders, "What am I supposed to do, lay awake all night fearing that thing again? We'll be safer as a pair than apart. Also, if we sleep in shifts, we might be able to catch whoever is messing with your shit."

Spock seemed to yield to the logic of the situation and followed Jim back down the hallway like a wandering wraith. Jim stopped just inside Spock's bedroom door and turned to his mate, frowning, "Unless you'd rather... I didn't." He muttered, feeling awkward, as if he'd just forced Spock into trusting him or something. But the Vulcan shook his head, looking conflicted a moment in glancing about his room before reaching out to set his fingertips at the side of Jim's face. The words Spock conveyed through that single touch were clear as day and Jim swallowed his longing for more of that intimate contact as Spock said:

_'Be reassured that your earlier display has not frightened me, nor has it made me regret our union. However, if we are to abide by our agreement, perhaps I ought to sleep on the floor by the fire.'_

Jim sagged a little with relief, glad that his royal cock-up hadn't just single-handedly and savagely torn apart everything they had worked for together. All those years of trust and friendship, gone in a snap of his fingers. Or rather... a really mean shove.

 _'If I had thought you would hurt me, I would not have encouraged our relationship in the beginning, Jim.'_ Spock's fingers receded with that thought and Jim smiled slightly, mollified. His eyes strayed down to the tomahawk in his mate's hand and he frowned, glancing around Spock's room.

"Where did you get that?" Jim asked, suddenly noticing a dusty outline of the weapon on a far wall.

"Considering that my phaser is drained, I needed a secondary weapon, this seemed readily available and was the first thing I could grab in such haste," Spock remarked, but rather than place the relic back on the wall, he strode over to the bed, setting it down on the nightstand.

"Well, if we're going with your theory of ghosts," Jim scoffed, "what little good that would have done you." They climbed under the blankets together, Jim on the left and Spock to the right closest to the fireplace.

"My first thoughts were toward that of an intruder, not an apparition of any kind, Jim," Spock replied, making Jim chuckle.

"Well, I should hope not..."

They rested in silence for a while, both of them staring up at the canopy of the bed above their heads, the curtains drawn back and the mattress creaking with age beneath their shifting weight. After a time, Jim opened up their earlier conversation, "When you were talking about...that sort of hoodoo being common on another planet like this, were you talking about your own planet, Spock?"

For a while, he half believed Spock wouldn’t answer or had fallen asleep, but when he turned his head against the pillow to check, brown eyes were open and considering the dark fabric overhead. Finally, his low voice remarked, "Vulcans do not believe in any deity that constructs an afterlife, as you may be familiar with... however, we have certain rituals that affect the Vulcan katra."

"Katra... why does that word sound familiar?"

"Perhaps you remember it from one of our melds in the past," Spock explained, and as he did so, Jim remembered the last session they had embarked on, the two of them revelling in memory together after a particularly harrowing mission. They had both been mentally and physically drained and exhausted and felt extremely lucky to have gotten out of their situations relatively unscathed. But they had been open and raw with one another, two live wires sparking in the night, needing something to ground them in the present again. So they had melded, seeking solace in each other's minds and finding peace there, comfort and love.

The memory caused Jim to smile and beneath the heavy blankets and thermals, he found Spock's hand resting upon the mattress and stroked his fingertips along the inside of Spock's wrist affectionately. Spock didn’t start or seem all too surprised, rather he turned his hand to slide his fingers between Jim's, resting it lightly there as a shiver of mutual pleasure warmed them both at the contact.

"A Vulcan Katra," Spock continued, "is what Humans might refer to as a soul."

That's when Jim got it, the word he had seen through Spock's memories, his disjointed thoughts about eternal katra and preserving of it that he had noticed there. "So if Vulcans believe in souls, you must believe they go somewhere after death, right?"

"It is an ancient ritual we perform, saving a katra. If we do not acquire the memories and knowledge of someone before they pass, those memories and knowledge are lost to us forever." Spock admitted, giving Jim a pinprick of a window into a culture so alien to his own.

"What do you do with it...after you, what...collect it?" He stumbled, uncertain of the vernacular.

"It is passed on into an eternal library, a place of preservation where one can seek out the memories and thoughts of an ancestor who has passed before them. It was constructed so that we may never not know something, not ever forget our pasts, all as one." It sounded a little overwhelming, even as Spock explained it, and Jim couldn’t imagine a place where he could draw up the mind of his grandfather, or great-great-great grandfather for that matter. What would it even be like? Would he have a conversation with that person, or would it be like watching a holovid?

"That sounds... logical." He decided, and received a small squeeze of acknowledgement from Spock's hand upon his for his admission. "But it doesn't necessarily mean Vulcans have a culture for ghosts. Humans don't really either, at least not something most of us sane individuals believe in, anyway. It's all holovids and scary fiction, things we read or fancy for entertainment purposes, not something we take seriously."

"No, I suppose not. I was uncertain about your beliefs in what your language calls the 'supernatural', but I was willing to entertain your theories if they were sound," Spock recalled, making Jim give him a wry roll of his eyes in the gloom.

"Right, so if I'd have said, 'Hey Spock, a ghost just grabbed my damn leg.', you would have been constructing your scientific hypothesis on the spot?" He teased, making Spock arch both brows at him.

"Perhaps not, but I do take your reactions very seriously, and when I heard your voice down the hall twenty and a half minutes ago, I did hear a chilling note of fear and desperation in it." He licked his lips, studying Jim's face half lit by the glow of the fireplace opposite him.

"Oh," Jim fell silent, because he'd never considered Spock to be that type of lover. Someone to believe wholly in the natterings of a terrified mate, solely because they had no other logical recourse. If he had told Spock he'd seen a three-foot tall pterodactyl, would he have gotten a net? It redrew the line of trust Jim had thought he'd known the location of with him and his First Officer and mate; only now looking more closely, he hadn't known it at all. Spock was fiercely loyal, he knew that, but to blindly face whatever reality he told Spock to believe in, to accept it and protect him from it ferociously even without a firm stand in logic? Well...that sounded like pure emotion to Jim.

But he didn't point it out, instead rolling onto his side, pact be damned as he slid his arm across Spock's middle and tugged him a fraction closer on the bed, his head coming to rest against the Vulcan's shoulder sweetly. Spock was warm and Jim sighed, feeling relaxed for the first time since they had beamed down to this damn planet.

To his credit, Spock didn't tense or complain, rather he drew the blanket up higher about Jim's shoulders and shifted his arm to rest behind his mate, curling it over Jim's back. Jim cast one more glance about the room, reassuring himself that all was quiet before he felt confident enough to close his eyes and chase sleep.

The morning shed even less light on the matter, as Jim was shaken awake by a hand on his shoulder. He turned over onto his back and half sat up on his elbows to cast a bleary gaze about the room. Spock was sitting up in bed beside him, his back against the polished headboard and his eyes slowly surveying the room.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Jim was suddenly awake when he noticed a disturbing change. His hand dropped from his face in shock, confusion clouding his expression as he observed, from left to right, every single piece of furniture had been flipped. Not moved, not pilfered... simply turned exactly where it lay to be upside down. The pictures on the wall, as well as the mounted heads of beasts, were all facing the wrong way up. The chairs were all on their heads, impossibly balanced there.

Jim didn’t breathe, just looked at all the strange, creepy occurrences. Even the lamps, balanced on the underside of the overturned nightstands, were balanced precariously upon their iron tips. "What..." He let out a short breath, feeling winded. It seemed as if everything aside from the bed had been disturbed in the night. Spock hadn’t moved from beside him, and when Jim whipped his head back to look at his First Officer, there was a measure of alarm in those Vulcan eyes.

"How... the hell did something do this without waking us up? Not even us, but _you_! Surely it would have woken _you_ up!" Jim stammered, baffled.

Spock's head swiveled in a slow denial, in as much disbelief as Jim. He watched as Jim pushed the blankets back, struggled to get free of all their layers and, as Jim's socked feet hit the floor, both he and Spock jumped in shock as everything balanced precariously tumbled to the floor with a resounding crash.

Jim jumped back in bed in an instant, half way across it in fact with a hand pressed protectively against Spock's chest, keeping him still while half shielding him as the two men gripped one another's arms, caught in an odd kind of grapple as one sought to prevent the other from charging from the room.

"Holy fuck!" Jim snapped, gasping and wide-eyed.

"It isn't...possible," Spock whispered, "the amount of time it would take to center each object until the core balance is found and maintained-"

"What are you talking about Spock?" Jim huffed, spooked. "This isn't some science project, someone wasn't in here all night fucking messing with all the furniture until it stood like that!" He leapt from the bed, half tearing the top two layers of blankets with him in his haste to get a closer look. "Even the rug is upside down, Spock!" He snapped, gesturing sharply at the floor beneath his feet. "How the hell could someone have done that, while the damn bed and all this furniture rested on it?"

Spock's fingers gripped the sheet in his lap, having also noticed the rug, but had no way of explaining the freak phenomenon. "The...only point of ingress, aside from the locked windows, would have been the bedroom door. I locked it last night, after Ensign Reeves left."

Jim's lips thinned into a tight, straight line of frustration and although he would never admit it...fear. "Windows that are on the second floor, Spock. Someone would have to put a ladder up there to get in here. So if this wasn't done by a person...who could have done it? Not you, not me." He argued, gesturing between himself and his FIrst Officer.

"It is...unexplainable," Spock finally admitted, and the worried stitch between his brows was enough to cause Jim another level of distress. If even Spock was having a hard time coming up with a reasonable explanation for all this mess, what hope would he have for seeing through his intimidating charade. Could the Cenlarians be doing this somehow? They did not seem capable of any kind of psychic power, Spock didn't have any kind of physical readings for such a theory... but it was all he had to go on. Perhaps it was time to ask the locals what the hell was up with this place.

"Perhaps... Ensign Reeves may have the only open theory available to explain these events," Spock suggested, causing Jim to scoff.

"Oh, right, because believing that this place is haunted is more logical than arguing that it might have something to do with the superstitious individuals living here?" Jim retorted, folding his arms across his chest defensively. He knew what he'd seen last night, what he'd seen just now... but he was refusing to resort to assuming this was all ghosts and goblins. Not only did he not believe in the hocus pocus of his culture, or the Cenlarian culture for that matter... but Jim needed logic. It was what he could understand when faced with this kind of problem, because emotions got no one anywhere when dealing with a potential prankster. Or perhaps... a tribe believing they were not having their needs met by a treaty.

"We will speak with the Cenlarian tribesmen today," Spock conceded.

"Damn right we will, and I'm not coming back here until we get to the bottom of this bullshit." Turning away, Jim avoided some shards of shattered glass and ceramic, "We're not sleeping in here again tonight anyway... sleep in the library if we have to," he muttered, unlocking and opening the bedroom door to stomp out into the hallway and across to the bathroom.

Spock remained behind, still sitting up in bed as still as the stone structure imprisoning him; this mysterious and impenetrable home with it's dark corners and dimly lit rooms. Glancing at the fireplace, he noticed the stand buried in ashes from the logs stoked the night before was even turned bottom up, although the ashes about it in the hearth were undisturbed. Pursing his lips, he rose to follow Jim, picking his overturned bag up from the floor as he left, shutting out the mess and disorder of the room behind its closed door to be pondered over at a later, calmer moment.

In the bathroom, Jim took a moment to look around the small room. There was a claw-footed bath tub with a curtain, although there was no shower head, simply a nozzle on a hose. Jim checked behind the curtain, as silly as it felt to do so. He looked in all the cabinets and such, looking for anything odd or out of the ordinary. He found a few vials of some kind of viscous solution, most likely soap left behind by the owner. He also found towels and he selected one from a clean stack, draping it over the iron rod holding the curtain up about the tub.

What he didn’t find was anyone hiding, and so he opened the taps in the tub, pulled his thick shirt off over his head and set it on the counter by the depression in the stone serving as a sink. Frowning, he leaned forward and peered at the mirror, reached up to run his fingers along the edges and found a cabinet behind it. He felt around in the dim light, fingers grazing across dusty shelves, finding nothing until his fingertips bumped against cloth in the corner of the last highest shelf. He had to stretch to reach it, but what he pulled down was a small draw-string sack. It was dusty and smelled odd, like herbs, and when he drew it open, he found a few dried sprigs of some type of plant. Something rattled in the bottom of the sack and when he shook it out over the counter, little porcelain pebbles fell out and clattered against the stone.

"Shit..." He scrambled to catch them before they hit the floor, scooping them all into a little pile only to freeze in horror. They weren’t pebbles, they were teeth. Swallowing his discomfort, Jim picked one up, noting the root still intact. They were small, probably not adult, and humanoid.

Reaching up, Jim was still staring at the tooth in his palm as he closed the mirrored cabinet, but his peripheral vision caught a dark mass just behind his left shoulder in the reflection and he whirled around with a startled cry, sending teeth scattering down to the floor as he caught himself against the counter. "Fuck! Spock!" He panted, curling a hand about the back of his neck and closing his eyes, trying to calm his racing heart as his First Officer apologized softly.

"I knocked, but you did not respond," the Vulcan explained, his hands clasped tightly behind him, shoulders stiff with a professionalism he was trying to use as a shield against his obvious guilt at having scared his Captain.

"It's fine, ...fine," Jim murmured, gazing down at the little white teeth on the floor about his feet and shuffling to sweep them all aside. "Did you need something?"

"I thought I should inform you that due to the snow storm outside, our meeting with the Cenlarians has been rescheduled for later this afternoon. They will send a guide for us."

"Wonderful," Jim muttered, though his tone suggested he thought the exact opposite at Spock's news. "Not like we need any extra time to cobble together our breakfast of rations and protein bars..." He grumbled as Spock closed the bathroom door again. Jim cast a wary glance toward the mirror, and, not seeing a shadow aside from his own, he finished stripping himself and stepped into the tub to relish a hot shower.

 

It is later, once they have both eaten their less than stellar meals, that Jim suggests Spock wait to shower so he might be especially warm just before they are due to leave for the continued talks with the Cenlarian tribesmen. Since Jim had decided to catalogue all the rooms in the house with the intention of finding another place for them to sleep undisturbed for the night, Spock retired to the bathroom with his toiletries intending to see to his rituals. The room was still significantly warmer than the others in the house, heated by Jim's earlier shower and the stone walls still damp to the touch with condensation.

Setting his small bag down on the counter, Spock removed a laser depilatory device and brought it to his cheek, shaving the dark hair shadowing his face and neck. Rubbing his hand over his face and chin, he felt about for any hair he might have missed and as he looked himself over in the mirror, he paused, getting the distinct feeling that he was being...watched.

It wasn’t just Starfleet training raising the hairs along the backs of Spock's arms and neck, but an acute sense of his surroundings that caused Spock to turn, expecting to see Jim or someone else in attendance. But the bathroom was empty save for himself, and Spock frowned. He could not shake the feeling that there was some presence, that he is being studied...observed.

It was illogical, but given the morning he had just suffered, Spock called out hesitantly, "Hello?" Of course, he got no reply, and the feeling remained, but he neither saw nor heard anyone, and so he set his laser device down and turned on the taps in the bath tub. Setting his soaps in the bottom of the bath, Spock divested himself of his inordinately thick sleeping clothes and restrained a shiver. Although it was warmer in this room, it was still far below a comfortable temperature for him and so he hurried to get beyond the curtain and trap himself inside the shower with its steam.

Spock did not take very long showers, a First Officer had very little time for indulgences and Spock didn’t especially like the experience of a water shower, so he continued to hurry, only to realize that they still had an adequate amount of time before their meeting was to commence and also realizing that this might be the warmest he would be for a while.

After finishing his cleansing routine, Spock stood under the spray, ignoring all logic and reason and simply remaining there to keep himself warm. His eyes closed and he sought out that familiar place of calm at the center of his mind, allowing himself to slip into a half state of meditation while he held the spray at chest level, sending water cascading down over his form. He did not count the minutes, though he was aware of the time distantly, and he told himself he would remain only another two and a half minutes, that was until he felt something cold and wet come into contact with his side.

Opening his eyes, Spock glanced down and almost slipped in his haste to leap back from what appeared to be the shape of a human hand reaching out for him through the curtain surrounding him. Spock dropped the shower hose to the bottom of the tub and reached out toward the edge of the curtain, intending to rend it aside and catch his assailant in the act, but he never got that far as hands thrusting through the curtain behind him grappled at his form and caused him to fall with a cry.

Spock hit the bottom of the tub with a painful crack and the curtain came with him, wrapping around him like the squeezing muscle of a snake, wrapping about his legs and torso, covering his face and squeezing tight until he was suffocating. He struggled desperately, tried to scream out past the wet cloth that was starting to drown him as his hands were pinned up against his chest and his legs were twisted badly together. He had a panicked moment where he wondered:

_...Is this how I die?_

Before Spock could black out, his lungs screaming for air, he heard a distant clatter and the hands that were holding him down against the tub were ripping at the curtain imprisoning him. A voice shouting his name reached Spock's ears, which were pounding with the sound of his own fluttering heartbeat. Light pierced his eyes quite suddenly and he was blinded as the curtain was ripped away from his face, allowing him to take his first ragged breath.

"Spock!" Jim's face swam into view over Spock and the Vulcan was weak for a time as his body attempted to recover from oxygen deprivation. He coughed, choking on water that had been forced up his nose and down his throat through the tight seal of this trap and when Jim managed to cut the rest of the curtain free of him, Spock accepted the arms aiding him up out of the tub.

Spock's legs nearly buckled under his weight as Jim dragged him from the tub but he managed to catch himself with a hand against the wall. Jim set him down slowly upon the floor, wrapping towel after towel about his legs and shoulders, draping them over his lap and head until Spock was simply a mass beneath the soft concern of his Captain and lover.

Throughout the entire moment, Jim had been talking and it took a moment for Spock to register his words: "...never again. You and I are not doing things alone, got it?" Jim commanded, crouching before Spock with his hands on the Vulcan's knees, his eyes still frantic and afraid, set in the granite and steel of his Captain's mask. "From now on, we stick together. I don't care if it's taking a piss, I've got to be here with you, understand? We can't be alone, not if the fucking shit in this house is trying to kill us!"

Numbly, Spock nodded his agreement, his throat sore from shouting and nearly drowning to death, his head beginning to pound in time with his heart aching in his side from the strain.

"And we're going to ask some goddamn questions, no more of this superstitious bullshit. They are going to tell us what the fuck they've been up to since we got here and I'm going to get some goddamn answers. Nobody," Jim roared, getting to his feet and stomping across the bathroom to the stack of Spock's clean clothes folded nicely on the counter still, yanking the Vulcan's sweater free and returning to stoop and help Spock into it, "and I mean nobody, is going to try to kill my own goddamn First Officer. Got it?" He hissed, frustration, anger, and fear all present in his voice.

Spock swallowed and tugged at the right sleeve of his sweater, trying to get it to settle against his still damp skin as it clung, a feeling not unlike the shower curtain he tried not to think about. "Perhaps... we ought to return to the ship, Jim," Spock suggested, his voice hoarse and broken, throat raw with the taste of metal on his tongue.

"What, and waste some of this good ol' Cenlarian hospitality?" Jim crowed, his eyes wide and slightly manic with his anger that now buffeted against Spock's mental shields like a brewing storm. "Hospitality my ass, Spock! This place has been nothing but fucking hell since we set foot down here," he snarled, crossing the room again to bring Spock the rest of his clothes. "C'mon, come sit by the heater out here, get warm before we have to go back out into that damn snow storm." He waited for Spock, following so close behind the Vulcan to the living room downstairs that they nearly collided at the bottom, Jim's hand coming to rest on Spock's side as he all but herded the First Officer into a seat closest to the hearth. "I'm tellin' you...heads are going to roll, Spock," he growled, angrily stabbing at a log in the fireplace with the poker, forcing it into submission against its neighbors.

 

"You have got to be kidding me," Jim muttered as he looked out the window of the transport taking them back to the house on the ridge. The beasts that pulled the transport were not visible from the enclosed carriage, but their grunts and howls of effort were audible and Jim did not envy them their hardship as they endeavored to pull their charge up the embankment thick with fresh snow and sleet.

"We've been trying for hours, and nothing... no static, no feedback. It's total radio silence, Spock. We can't get through to them and they can't reach us. We've been effectively cut off from the Enterprise." Jim's frustration was evident in the way he gripped his fists, curled tightly and shoved deep into the pockets of his heavy overcoat, lapels of the garment pulled taut against his frame.

"Perhaps if we were to find another high point where we might get above the storm?" Spock suggested. "Although, there seems to be some strange sort of electro-magnetic feature to this storm that I have never witnessed before," he remarked, his attention directed down toward his lap where he balanced his tricorder.

"We cannot penetrate it, it is almost as if this whole town is under some kind of dome that keeps us separate," Jim said as they crested the ridge and the sleigh-like transport slid to a halt at the foot of the drive. "And Vex, it was like pulling teeth with that guy," Jim huffed as they wrapped their clothes about them tighter, about to brave the wind and frigid temperatures. Jim moved first, holding the door open for Spock and glancing up at the driver tucked in against the front of the transport, his face covered in some sort of mask that kept him warm while the rest of his body was bundled tight, the reins to the beasts of burden gripped tightly in a gloved hand. Jim lifted a hand in farewell to the fellow but got no reply as the figure drove off into the blinding snow whipped into a frenzy by the wind.

Bracing themselves against the prevailing winds, Spock had to grip Jim by the arm just to keep him steady as the pair struggled through the yard, the path long since covered by snow. They unlocked their door and practically tumbled and fell into the foyer, red-nosed and blinded with melting flakes on their eyelashes. "Can you believe it? Their only explanation," Jim continued, although somewhat winded and huffing as he said, "is that this place is haunted. Did you see the fear on their faces?"

"Perhaps," Spock began, though he had to cease speaking as his lips trembled with the cold, his teeth clicking together until Jim pushed him toward the living room where hot coals still rested in the fireplace and the portable heater radiated inviting warmth. "Perhaps," he continued, "what we are experiencing is something they find...particularly terrifying."

Jim was always the first to anger when his crew were threatened, and Spock's trauma of that morning had done nothing to calm the temper brewing inside his Captain. “I need answers, dammit, not superstitions!”

"They did give us these..." Spock murmured, pulling a medium sized draw-string sack from his large coat pocket and opening it to spill the contents out onto the low table before the fireplace. Two wrapped bundles of twigs tumble out, as well as a few odd stones of various colors and a vial of some tinted liquid. "I do not know what use they will be to us, however they seemed to believe they would solve our issues."

"Right, superstitious toys for a ghost-loving society. That'll fix us right up Spock, that is, if we had a damn ghost in here!" Jim spread his hands, "I don't believe in that, you don't believe in that, so the only other logical explanation has to be that-"

"Jim," Spock looked up from the odd array of gifts on the table, his gaze unwavering, even as Jim dropped his arms to his sides and gave him an incredulous stare.

"What... you're actually believing all this shit?" Jim asked, almost sounding affronted, as if Spock had somehow betrayed him or 'switched sides'.

"Until this morning, I was as skeptical as you were Jim... but you were not in the room when I experienced-" Spock stopped, the memory of that morning too fresh in his mind to be spoken of comfortably, his throat still sore. "There were no beings, I would have sensed them, I was alone. However, I did not feel alone, if that is explanation enough. There were..." Spock's lips pursed, reluctant to dredge up the image, "...hands."

Jim's eyes squinted into tiny slits, scrutinizing his First Officer as he came closer, peering at him as if he may be unwell, "Hands?" He repeated, brows deeply furrowed.

Spock dipped his head in a low, uncomfortable nod, "They were strong, held me down."

Jim sank down into a chair adjacent to Spock, his arms braced along his knees, still studying Spock's face, "There wasn't anyone in there when I came in."

Spock simply returned Jim's stare, not out of any challenge, but in a silent plea. Jim had to believe him, as unbelievable as the facts he stated seemed to be, they were still facts.

Abruptly, Jim got to his feet, pacing away from Spock, his hands laced together and braced atop his head, his footsteps thumping along the rug. He took a moment, seeming to work something out in his head before he turned on Spock and opened his hands in an almost helpless gesture. "So you're telling me... that you think it's a ghost."

"Not in...so many words. I have no knowledge with which to hypothesize. Without more facts or experiences, I cannot create a theory."

"But you think it's something... paranormal," Jim reiterated, his hands graduating to his hips as he hung his head, staring at the rug.

Tipping his head aside, Spock looked away, hearing his own illogic with the idea said aloud.  
"I...do not know any longer."

"Yeah," Jim sighed, a sound filled with months of weariness, "me neither."

 

Spock didn’t sleep, and as much as Jim denied his ability to, the human rested, if somewhat fitfully. Spock wasn’t certain whether he ought to be jealous; as Jim slept he was unaware of the goings on of the house; or whether he should be grateful that at least one of them will be fresher in the morning.

While Jim was sleeping, Spock watched the bathroom light behind it's closed door flick on and off, on and off, knowing full well that there wasn’t a single soul in there. At least, not a living one. He also heard more footsteps, this time they paused outside their bedroom door, and Spock reached across Jim for his phaser, arming it, simply to make himself feel somewhat more protected, even if the energy beam would do little to no damage to such a creature.

Finally, at about half past three in the morning, Spock gave in to his needs. If he could not sleep, he needed to at least endeavor to meditate. Since he was awake, he could keep watch for Reeves' check-in, although Spock noted that the Ensign was an hour late at that point. He assumed the storm must be interfering with transporter capabilities.

Slowly untangling himself from Jim's heavy limbs, Spock slipped from the bed, planting his feet well away from the bottom edge of the bed and finding his pen light inside his bag. The house had ceased it's noises a half hour ago, and in the prevailing silence, Spock heard his own harsh breathing as he stepped from the master bedroom at the end of the hall. Down the hall, there was a single light on outside both his and Jim's old rooms, and it flickered ominously as he passed into the stairwell. The light in the foyer was out, even though he was positive he and Jim had left it on to receive Reeves when the man showed for check-in.

In the darkness of the first floor, Spock tried the switch, but the light remained stubbornly off and Spock frowned, for surely if it were shorted, the one upstairs would have been as well. Perhaps there was a generator on site, and if he were to find it, maybe he could fix this issue. First, however, he required a hot beverage.

Passing by the archway into the living room, Spock almost missed the figure standing in the darkened room, as only the very faint orange glow of the dying coals lit a small area of the room. Spock stiffened, turning his pen light in that direction and saw a flash of red. Standing with his back to Spock appeared to be Ensign Reeves, his arms at his sides, all his winter gear on with the hood of his red jacket pulled up.

"Ensign?" Spock whispered, a small fissure of fear opening up in the pit of his stomach. Was this Ensign Reeves? Why was he staring off toward the corner of the room?

The figure remained turned away for a moment longer, then Reeves turned about, Spock's light shining in his face and causing him to squint, holding up a hand to deflect it as he blinked over at Spock. "Sir?"

"How did you get inside?" Spock asked, caution and unease pressing him to question the Ensign.

"The backdoor, sir... it was unlocked," Reeves explained, though his explanation seemed vague, for there was more than one back door. Spock and Jim had checked every door and window on the ground floor before they retired to bed, and they were positive each had been locked.

"Why did you not call up for me?" Spock inquired, watching the Ensign's face, searching his eyes in the dim light, but unable to tell if the man was lying or otherwise under some other kind of...influence.

"I did sir, I heard you call back. You did...call back sir, right?" Reeves queried, his eyes round, and Spock could sense another rumor brewing at this, so he dismissed the topic.

"You are late for check-in. Is Lieutenant Scott experiencing issues operating the transporter?"

"Yes sir, it took him longer, they were hungry you see," Reeves replied, his eyes dropping from view.

Spock frowned, because that statement struck him as odd; he had never heard Lieutenant Scott refer to the transporter as something needing to be fed, so why would Reeves be reporting such a phrase? Was this some odd turned about style of human joke that he was unfamiliar with? "Very well."

"Is everything alright here, sir?" Reeves probed.

"Yes, Ensign. Shall I make you a cup of tea before you leave?” Spock offered, turning to go into the kitchen. “You may have to wait awhile longer before you can be beamed back aboard, if Lieutenant Scott is still experiencing issues."

"No sir, I'll be alright. Good night." Reeves turned and made for the front door and Spock watched him go, only to notice Reeves stop and stand before the door, awkwardly turning about as if awaiting something. "Sir?" He finally said, his tone that of a request and Spock slowly walked forward, frowning at the young man's odd behavior. Could the Ensign not see himself out?

Awkwardly, Spock reached past Reeves and unlocked the front door, and as he exhaled a cloud of steaming breath erupts from him and the temperature around Reeves dropped, so swiftly that Spock shivered and pulled back his hand sharply. He met Reeves' gaze and his eyes were dark... where they used to be blue. Spock's hand tightened around the doorknob and he opened the door, a gust of frigid air and snow sweeping into the foyer and then Reeves ducked his head and was gone in the white of it before Spock could say another word. Quickly, he closed the door and, after a moment's hesitation, locked it.

Wandering in a daze into the kitchen, Spock went through the motions of placing the kettle over the stove and lighting the burner beneath, waiting for the water to boil before placing a sachet of tea from the ship into a mug and pouring the water over it. He had just wrapped his hands around the mug, shoulders tense, thoughts whirling, when he heard an alarming cry from upstairs.

"Jim!" Spock didn’t hesitate but whirled about in the empty kitchen, dropping the mug and dashing from the room to the sound of shattering ceramic. He raced up the stairs, ignoring the fact that all the bedroom doors were now wide open, but when he got to the master bedroom, the door was sealed tightly shut. He ran into it, his shoulder bruising from the impact as he threw his weight against it, pitting it against the door and twisting the handle to no avail. On the other side of the door, Spock could hear muffled sounds of movement and the sound of something heavy colliding with the wall opposite.

"Jim!"

Backing up, Spock took another run at the door, this time striking foot first and the lock snapped from the door jam, splinters of wood flying into the dark room beyond as he charged in, slapping the wall for the light switch. Brilliant light flooded the room, causing Spock to squint during the moment of transition, giving him a brief second of observation.

At first, Spock couldn’t see Jim, that is until he heard a shaky breath from across the room. Curled tightly in the corner against the wall and the side of the vanity table was Jim, his legs drawn up and his hands above his head which was ducked over his lap, curled in a protective stance.

"Jim!" Spock crossed the room in three strides, dropping to his knees before his partner and reaching for him, forcing Jim's head up to inspect him for injuries, "Jim, are you hurt?" He asked insistently, casting his hands up Jim's arms. Finally, Jim shook his head, though his eyes were round and full of alarm and terror.

"I saw one... I saw it.." He repeated, gripping Spock's arms and taking the support Spock offered as the Vulcan drew him to his feet again. With a shaking finger, Jim pointed toward the fireplace, "There, she was just there. I saw her, it was like she was really there all solid and then she turned around and- God, Spock," he choked, "half of her was gone, like something had taken a big bite out of her from shoulder to hip!"

Spock turned his head to look over his shoulder as Jim gripped the front of his shirt, in a state of shock and pale as snow. He didn’t see anything now, nothing resembling a half eaten woman, but he did notice all four paintings had changed... as all four women had turned about to face the room, and what Spock saw was a woman with pale skin and black eyes, her lips twisted into a smile far too wide for the set of her face. She was like a terrible clown, her hands clasped about some strange object, a twisted root of some kind.

Gripping Jim's shoulders, Spock drew his partner against him and looked back at him, noticing the fire poker from the hearth laying across the vanity, the mirror above it cracked from a single point of impact. "Jim..." Spock nodded toward the vanity and Jim turned to look, his breath trembling out past his lips as he murmured:

"She threw that at me...from the hearth."

Spock felt the color drain from his face at this revelation and as Jim also noticed the paintings, their fears mingled like an electrical current in the air between them and without a word, the two of them began to collect their blankets and things from off the bed. Jim took the phaser and Spock followed him downstairs as they settled everything onto the sofa. Spock stooped to rekindle the fire in the fireplace and Jim circled the heaters about the couch.

"What kind of hell is this place..." Jim whispered later, as both of them rested defensively upon the couch with Jim's back up against one end and Spock's against the other, two pairs of eyes on all corners of the room.

"I do not know, but I suggest we secure this treaty...before anything worse befalls us." Spock replied and together, they spent the night downstairs, the house silent save for the crackling fire, but their hearts and minds loud with fears and unanswered questions.

 

Jim jerked awake some time just before first light, the living room still dim and the embers of their fire glowing a dull orange in the fireplace. Something had definitely woken him, but he couldn’t pinpoint what the sound had been or where it had come from.

Sitting up, he wiped his hands down over his face and pressed his fingers into his tired eyes, feeling the strain and soreness there smarting under his touch. As his vision cleared, Jim peered across the couch at Spock, who was still half curled on his side, his face turned toward the back of the couch with the blankets pulled clear up to his chin. Mustering a smile, Jim shifted his feet under the blankets, his legs cramped from sharing the narrow piece of furniture with a leggy Vulcan. Prodding Spock gently in the back of the thigh with his toes, Jim murmured, "If I'm awake, you're going to be awake too..."

Shifting, Spock muttered something Jim didn’t quite catch, rolling onto his back and sweeping the blanket aside to squint across the couch at Jim. "Then why have you awoken so early?" He grumbled.

"Something woke me up," Jim admitted, getting up and taking a blanket with him, wrapping it around himself and rounding the couch to brush a dusty curtain aside, peering out past the foggy window pane. The snow caught the light, reflecting it, causing him to squint as the light of dawn refracting hurt his eyes. "Seems like the snow has slowed a bit, maybe we'll be able to beam up to the ship."

Even with the dawn fast approaching, the house seemed dark, the heavy drapes blocking out a lot of the encroaching sunlight which struggled to appear behind heavy snow clouds. Reaching out toward the wall by the entrance, Jim flipped a light switch, but when nothing happened, Spock remarked from his place on the sofa:

"The power seemed...faulty last night. However I did not have the time to locate the generator that must be supplying the energy to this place, for your cry distracted me." They were both reminded of the events of the previous night and Jim shivered from his spot by the windows, while Spock stared distantly into the open hearth, his tumultuous emotions trapped beneath his renewed control. Last night had been a shock and scare for them both, causing them both to be anxious about today's meeting. If things went well, perhaps they would be leaving this godforsaken planet tonight.

"C'mon, you shower first and I'll stand guard," Jim offered as he started for the stairs, hanging back until Spock joined him, quite obviously still uncomfortable with the notion of traveling upstairs alone. "Then we'll find that generator."

It takes them the better part of the morning to find it, the both of them bundled up and drinking hot tea, wandering the house and opening closets and doors. "What the fuck?" Jim exclaimed after he had opened a door in the back of the house, only to find it led straight into the wall. "It's like the crazy Winchester house in here..."

"What is the Winchester house?" Spock inquired, as they both moved down a long hallway off what they had found to be a secondary dining room.

"Well, the Winchesters designed the first patented repeating firearm. The wife of old Mr. Winchester was superstitious, so when her husband and son both died, she saw some creepy witch or something who told her she was being cursed by the spirits of those killed by her patented guns. So, in order to escape the retribution of these vengeful spirits," Jim paused, peeking around a half open doorway into what looked like some kind of office, although the shelves were devoid of any books this time, "she kept renovating the family house until the day she died. There are doors that lead to nothing, stairs to the ceiling, all that kind of weird stuff."

Spock seemed perplexed, but didn’t comment, for anything he might say would only solidify his belief that the Human race was perpetually illogical. When they felt as if they had walked through every hallway and looked into every room and closet, Jim eventually muttered, "Well unless it's behind that walled up door, I think we're going to have to go down into the cellar." Casting a grim look toward his First Officer, the pair steeled themselves as they trekked back to the kitchen. The closed door to their right opposite the stove stood like a nasty omen. Jim gripped the handle, casting another wary look toward Spock before he opened it.

The stairs were too narrow for them to proceed side by side, so Jim reluctantly took the lead, with Spock right at his back, so close he almost got a flat tire as he was crowded down the steps. "Shit it's dark down here," he complained, pulling out his penlight and switching it on, flashing it over what appeared to be a series of shelves with casks and sealed pots lining them. On the floor were barrels but Jim didn’t look past their lids, rather his attention was drawn toward a steaming contraption in the corner. "Well that's the water heater," he commented, turning his light to the left and illuminating a beast of machinery. There were coils and cranks, switches and turnstiles that made Jim grimace. "And that...must be the generator."

"How curious," Spock remarked, his own pen light pointed toward the low ceiling, casting an ambient glow over the whole narrow space as he approached the machine. Looking it over for a time, they figured out the gist of its working parts. "Fascinating, they have mined this ore naturally, refined it, and basically created one massive flint and steel. However, the generator losing power seems rather unlikely, given that the energy created by a single turn of the crank here would supply this house for a whole day."

"Maybe it hasn't been cranked for a very long time," Jim suggested, taking hold of the crank attached to the base of the machine and turning it, having to stoop upon rotation as he manipulated the inner workings. There was a terrible screeching sound of metal rubbing on metal and Jim grit his teeth. Spock flinched back and covered his ears as sparks sizzled and snapped at the center of the thing, raining down on some kind of blackened ore. The single light bulb over their heads flickered and snapped on upon Jim's second rotation of the crank and as he straightened up, the machine growled, settling into a low and guttural hum. "How the hell didn't we hear this thing when we got here?"

Back upstairs, Jim dusted his hands off but the black lines of soot only smeared and didn’t budge as he rubbed at them with a cloth, cursing under his breath. Looking up, Jim noticed Spock's thoughtful and confused expression and he asked, "What's wrong?"

"It is nearly afternoon and we have not been sent for," Spock pointed out and Jim pursed his lips, a sinking pit of disappointment and worry tumbling in his stomach.

"You're right." Together, they cross to a window and look out, watching the snow descend in innocent flurries. After sharing a look with Spock, Jim announces, "I guess we'll be hoofing it to town." Spock looked momentarily crestfallen but schooled his features quickly enough, making Jim sigh.

Reluctantly, they donned their thick outer wear and deposited themselves out into the elements, Jim locking up the house behind them. "I can't imagine why anyone would want to break into this place, when we've been spending all this week wanting to get out of it." Flipping the key over in his hand, he pocketed it and he and Spock began trudging through the heavy drifts, cutting across the yard in what they assumed the direction of the path was.

It took them well over thirty minutes to make it down the hill and Jim was winded by the time they managed it. Spock was silent, his cheeks flushed with the cold and his chin tucked down into the confines of his scarf and coat, a hat pulled down tightly over his head. No matter how cold Jim felt, it didn’t compare to the stab of remorse he felt for Spock, who had to accompany him or risk staying at the house...alone, and Jim would have never permitted that.

They stumbled cold, wet, and shivering into the great hall to note all the tribal leaders about their reflecting pool, huddled close and talking quietly. Their entrance broke the group up, however, and Jim eyed Tribal Leader Vex suspiciously as the man rose and cast them a quizzical glance in return.

"You surprise us, Captain Kirk, for we were told you would not be in attendance today," Vex remarked, which ignited Jim's quick, whip-like response of anger.

"Who told you that?" Jim snapped out, hearing a murmur of surprise from the other tribal leaders at his tone. Spock was too late to censor him and Vex took an involuntary step back.

Although, he was quickly recovering, Jim was still cold, and he was relieved that his temper of the moment was being overlooked by the locals. Vex spoke hastily, "I apologize, gentlemen. If I had known you were planning on calling us to assembly, I would have sent for you to save you the trip. Your other officers have not made contact with us either, and we were told by your security detail this morning that you required rest and would be taking the day to prepare."

Before Jim could get his words together to bluster, Spock interjected, pulling his hood back off his head and cocking his head in confusion at the Tribal Leader. "Our security detail? Then our transporter must be functioning, Jim." Turning to his Captain, Spock urged Jim to make contact with the ship, but when Jim opened up a channel on his communicator, all is total silence as before.

"I don't...understand," Jim remarked, casting his eyes toward Vex, "if we are unable to make contact, it must be assumed that our transporter is also not functioning due to the electromagnetic activity of the storm here. Who did you speak with?"

"Your security detail," Vex reiterated, seeming even more perplexed, his hands folding loosely together before him inside the long sleeves of his robe and furs. "I believe he called himself Reeves?"

"Ensign Reeves," Spock confirmed as he shared a frowning glance with Jim. "He did manage to check-in last night, Jim. However, he did report that Lieutenant Scott was still experiencing issues with the transporter. He seemed to return to the ship safely, but he did not check in with us this morning..."

"And you're sure it was Reeves?" Jim questioned, making Spock nod solemnly.

"It was, indeed, Ensign Reeves. However..." he paused, and was prompted by a look from his Captain to continue, even against his better judgement, "his behavior was somewhat strange."

"Right, well," flipping his communicator shut a little too sharply for politeness, Jim shoved it back onto his utility belt beneath his heavy overcoat, "we might as well proceed since we're here."

"Very well, allow me a short time to send for my other council members," Vex replied, backing away from Jim and Spock and turning away with a whisper of his robe.

 

As with the night before, they are shuttled back to the house by dark and as they climbed out of the carriage of the sleigh, Spock brought up a point, "We could have asked for a new place to stay, perhaps."

"Thought about it," Jim grunted and peered up at the looming figure of the stone house, trudging through snow up past his shins, "but no matter how much I hate this house and think it's trying to kill us... I still know we can't ditch at this point, not now. We have zero contact with the ship." Taking out the key, he inserted it into the lock while Spock shuffled up the steps behind him, "and if they do manage to beam someone down here, they're going to put someone down as close to this house as they can get. If we aren't here, we'll be as good as stranded until they could find us."

"However, there is another storm front moving in Jim, my tricorder confirms it," Spock argued, following Jim into the darkness of the foyer, tracking snow in behind them, "we would be unable to make contact regardless, and the chances that Lieutenant Scott could beam an individual down to the planet through the ensuing magnetic interference is less than five percent."

"So, what, we shack up with the locals and get stuck out there? I don't know about those sleighs, Spock, it was a bit of a struggle tonight with an added six inches of powdered snow to contend with. If we get stranded in the township, we'd have to hoof it back up here and on this hill, with all this loose snow? We'd be fools."

Smacking his fist against the lightswitch Jim now knew was there, the lights flickered on for a second and then snapped out again with the sound of an electrical discharge. The bulb over their heads shattered, causing both men to duck, their hands over their heads in a defensive reaction.

"Shit! Fuck this place!" Jim hissed, "fuck this treaty," he continued, stomping into the darkened living room, "and fuck this mission! Fuck it! Just fuck it!" He was panting by the end of his tirade and Spock could hear him across the room, feeling his way around for a match and the logs stacked in the fireplace. There was a flash of fire as the match lit and Jim's face was eerily illuminated for a moment as he ignited the kindling.

Moving over to the nearest portable heater, Spock frowned as he checked the charge in the growing light. "James," his voice was full of disappointment and weariness, "these heaters won't last us through the night."

"What are you talking about? Those things should have weeks of charge left in them, Scotty did them up himself before he beamed them down here." Stomping over, Jim looked over Spock's shoulder and swore, chucking his gloves into a loveseat adjacent to him in frustration. "You've got to be fucking kidding me! Even without enough sunlight in here to charge them up, they should have had enough on back up to last us out the rest of this week. Where did all that energy go, Spock?"

Silence sank into the room like a veil and Spock bent before the fire, opening his cold hands up to the flames and casting a grim look into the smoldering ash. "There is one theory," he began and Jim threw him a warning glance, which he ignored, "that the spirits of the dead require an electrical charge to manifest...they have been rumored to drain all manner of electrical devices in order to gain the energy they need."

"Are you saying a damn ghost ate our portable heater's energy stores, Spock?" Jim asked, his tone sharp, making the Vulcan flinch.

"I am only suggesting...it is a theory. Though I have no method by which to prove it."

Sinking down onto the rug beside Spock, Jim stretched his hands out toward the flames as well, his shoulders deflating with the last of his frustration, too tired to maintain it. "Sorry... I know you're just throwing shit out there. It can't be easy to have no logical explanations for any of this," he sighed, "and it's probably torture every minute you're trapped down here. The cold, the rations, the... shit going on."

"Indeed," Spock replied, his voice flat. "Although, I have been in worse situations before this."

"That's true, you and me both." They shared a soft moment of silent commiseration as they warmed themselves, then crawled under their blankets on the sofa after eating a meager meal together. As they settled in, Jim checked the thermal blankets and cursed again, for the charge was nearly depleted on every single one of them, rendering them no better than his grandmother's old quilt. Spock began to shiver two hours into their silent vigil, the single portable heater in the room doing little to dispel the chill as they conserved the energy in the others.

"Come over here," Jim suggested, wedging himself into the back of the sofa and making room for Spock to lay beside him, their arms wrapped around one another in an attempt to conserve their body heat as they chased sleep.

 

It was nearly nine thirty when there came a ragged knock at the front door; the sound of it startling both Spock and Jim out of a fitful doze. "Who the hell could that be?" Jim muttered, releasing Spock as the Vulcan shifted to get up, leaving room for him to do the same.

"Perhaps it is Ensign Reeves," Spock suggested as they both move to answer the door, Jim with his hand on the latch and lock and Spock with his upon his phaser, just in case. The person who had appeared on their doorstep, however, was the last person they had expected to see. As she pulled the cowl of her heavy cloak back, the familiar face of the second Tribal Leader of the South was visible in what little light emanated from Jim's penlight. "Leader Solarus."

She took the sound of her name as invitation and Jim just barely got the door open wide enough against the harsh wind outside before she swept into the dark foyer. She dropped her hood, and unfolded her hands to reveal one of the universal translating devices from the meeting hall. As she spoke, her voice cycled through the device into Federation Standard, even though what emerged from her mouth remained alien to their ears.

Glancing about, she commented softly, "The power has stopped."

"The electrical systems do seem faulty," Spock confirmed, and they watched as the woman made some sort of movement with her hands toward her chest and lips. It was almost like watching a devout religious follower cross themselves in their faith. Jim didn’t take it as a good sign for the start to this meeting…

Jim was blunt, "What did you need from us?"

Solarus paused, listening to the device as it repeated, to the best of it's abilities, his words into her language before she replied, "For you to listen...and to obey my words."

Spock straightened at this development; he and Jim shared a look of confusion before they motioned her into the living room where the most light was still flickering from the flames in the fireplace. She seemed grateful for the light and sank into the chair closest the fire, balancing the device on her knees beneath the pelts of her robes.

Jim and Spock took seats as well, and when Solarus still remained silent, Jim prompted her with raised brows, "We're listening."

Seeming to fidget, Solarus reached up to smooth her hands over her pure white hair, the length of it disappearing beneath the collar of her garments. She seemed nervous, but when she spoke her voice was steady. "This place," she glanced about the room before staring back down at the device in her lap, "it isn't well."

"Yeah, we got that," Jim interrupted, nonplussed by her look of discomfort.

"It was built by our late Supreme Leader, only the first of what was supposed to be the new city we were building with our wealth here. The ore in these parts, it is plentiful. We used it for trade, and many years ago, we were the richest village." Solarus looked up, her translucent eyes seeming sad, catching what little light there was in the room and turning them into hard, glittering gems. "Our late Supreme Leader, he promoted the development of our city, he was a great leader, knew many things. Knew how to keep the balances."

"What balances?" Jim interrupted again, looking toward Spock as the Vulcan spoke:

"The balances of good and evil, I believe."

Solarus inclined her head a fraction, agreeing wordlessly. "But he was ambitious... the Rackshan, they did not want this, they were at peace with the old ways. But the old ways were not good enough for us any longer. Our Supreme Leader, he went against their warnings and wishes. This place was built, and he lived in it with all his wives and children.

Spock arched a brow at this revelation, given what it now reflected on the Cenlarian culture. Jim folded his arms over his chest, leaning forward over his knees and peering at Solarus. "Is that why you're so nervous in here? You believe being here will anger the Rackshan?"

Solarus dropped her head, and even beneath all her pelts and robes she seemed to shrink as she nodded. When she lifted her head a moment later, however, it was with fervor, her eyes wide. "We have tried to argue, but they do not listen."

"The Rackshan," Jim confirmed, Solarus nodded again, "So why put us here? Why did you place my First Officer and I in a house you knew very well was considered condemned."

"I do not understand, this word, 'condemned'?" Solarus questioned, her thin, white brows screwed up tight on her face in confusion.

"It means outcast, a place no one goes, a dangerous place," Jim clarified, and as he spoke Solarus winced and hid her eyes again.

"We did not wish to, we did not want the Rackshan to know of you. But they know everything... and they insisted upon it. You came with your technology, your flying machines and your medicines and your treaty. To them, you are just like our late Supreme Leader," Solarus explained.

Leaning back in his chair, Jim let out a long breath, "Then why did you come here, just to tell us what we already have figured out for ourselves?"

Solarus leaned forward, setting the universal translator down on the low table before her as she sank to the floor on her knees, taking up the position of discussion and meeting. Her movement prompted Spock to follow, and then finally Jim, though he was wary as he squatted down and braced his arms along the low table.

"Are you coming here as some kind of emissary then, on behalf of Vex, your current Supreme Leader?" Jim questioned, his suggestion leading Solarus to shake her head firmly.

"No," she cut her hand across the air in a denial, driving her point home in the first strong motion she had made all night, perhaps since Jim has met her. "I come here without him knowing it. He despairs, for he believes you and your Federation will turn your backs on us here. Yes, we are valuable, but you will not meet our requests...so I am here. To appeal to you. Captain." Solarus swallowed, tipping her head beseechingly, "you are kind, I have seen it in you, your companions are loyal." She glanced at Spock, "so hear my plea, and perhaps you will grant us our freedom."

"Freedom?" Jim frowned, gripping his arms in his hands where they were folded against his chest.

"Our people, we do not wish to live here any longer. This world is corrupted by our late Supreme Leader and his ambitions. We cannot grow here, we cannot establish a new way of life. The Rackshan, they are the only beings who can live here in happiness now. Without ships, and without the means to develop them without terrible disaster and great evil, we are prisoners in our homes."

"Where would you go, if your people no longer wish to reside here?" Spock inquired.

"To the stars, where we will find our own way again. We are strong, but also s'lit'chk," she says.

The word is unfamiliar, but it's meaning could be guessed at and Jim slowly nodded. All three were quiet for a time, the only sounds filling the room were those of the storm building outside, the wind beginning to howl, whipping snow flurries past the windows. Finally, Jim said, "There's just one problem... even if I wanted to argue your case with my superiors, I cannot contact my ship through these storms. If I cannot contact my ship, I cannot send a message back to the Federation for review.”

Solarus seemed to deflate as this point was brought to her attention and her expression turned to one of mourning and regret, her hands falling from their place on the table to fold into her lap meekly. "Yes, this season has been very terrible."

Jim and Spock shared a moment of wordless communication and Jim saw in the Vulcan's eyes a very clear statement; this planet doesn't need ships... it needs an emergency evacuation. If the danger of this place can be proven, Starfleet would approve an evacuation operation. These people would be liberated, all whom wish to leave, transplanted like so many other refugees. Like Vulcan.

"I can promise, however, that I will speak with my superiors on your behalf and argue your case for evacuation off this planet," Jim reassured, causing Solarus' head to snap up in surprise that quickly turned to relief and gratitude.

"Oh Captain, thank you, thank you, g'mor. G'mor!" She repeated, speaking too swiftly for the translator to function in time. Rising from her spot on the floor, Solarus made a gesture of respect Jim had seen others in the council do, having replicated the posture himself in farewell after every council meeting. "I will speak with Vex, perhaps there is a way we might get you and your First Officer friend to your ship."

They rose with her as she straightened, picking up the device from the table and clutching it in her hands, seeming to shake with the emotions plain in her pale face. "Will you be alright getting back into town?" Jim asked, concern written across his face as he glanced outside and saw the storm whipping the powdered snow into a frenzy out in the yard.

Solarus shook her head emphatically and dragged her hood up over her head clumsily in her haste as she hurried toward the foyer, obviously very anxious to be out of the house as she cast back over her shoulder to them, "I have a transport, I will fair well!" Jim barely had enough time to catch up to her and open their door before she was flying back out into the wind again, thanking them again as she left in haste, braced against the wind and stumbling out through the snow.

Jim's shoulders drooped as he shut their door, locking it again and lifting his penlight up to illuminate his features in the dark for Spock as he pulled a grim face. "You know, Spock... perhaps we didn't give these people enough credit."

"How do you mean?" Frowning, Spock followed Jim into the living room again, placing another log onto the fire to keep it burning.

"I think they're a whole of a hell lot more conniving than we thought. I highly doubt Vex did not know of her visit here tonight; she was too scared not to have discussed this move with someone else. This was planned...why else would they have put us in this house? Keep us trapped here, wear us down bit by bit until we agree to their conditions to the treaty. It's brilliant. Why wouldn't they have done it this way?"

"You are operating under the suspicion that these people are just as conniving and wicked as you," Spock remarked, causing Jim to let out a startled bark of laughter, the sound seeming foreign in the oppressive house.

"So maybe they didn't do it, maybe they really do fear the Rackshan as much as they seem to and were told to drop us in this hell hole to rot... but they'd be fools not to figure out a way to turn it to their advantage."

"They are intelligent," Spock agreed.

"It's what I would have done." The sofa dipped next to Jim as Spock settled into the cushions beside him and they spend a short time getting comfortable again, this time with Spock in the corner of the couch and Jim wedged in against him, the blankets tucked so tightly about them that it was nearly impossible to move more than an inch or so.

 

"Mmn..." Reaching a hand out, Jim cast his fingers across the sofa, wondering why he suddenly had so much space when just a second ago, he'd been jockeying for position curled up in tandem with Spock's boney knees. Now, he had the whole couch to himself, a few blankets lying on the floor where they had fallen, presumably, when Spock had risen. "Spock?" Jim called out into the rest of the dark house, hoping Spock heard him and would come back to lay down again rather than make Jim search for him alone in this creepy place.

"Spock..." Huffing, Jim muttered to himself as he sat up, "what did we talk about, don't go off alone, we're supposed to stick together. Even if it's just for a piss." Grunting, Jim pulled himself up from the sofa and wrapped a blanket about his shoulders, shivering as he moved away from the singular warmth of the portable heater next to their sleeping spot.

"When I find you, I'm going to chew your pointed ear off, now is not a good time to be a prude..." Yawning, Jim snatched his penlight from off the table and took it with him, switching it on as he wandered back through the dark house. But Spock wasn’t in the kitchen, nor was he in the downstairs bathroom or even the den. "Spock?" He called out again, finally coming awake as he began to realize that all the places Spock would logically be in... were Spock free.

"Where the hell are you?" Worry began to creep its way into his chest as Jim reluctantly traversed the stairs to the upper level of the house, sweeping his light first left and then right along the hallway. He peered into each of the rooms, both his old bedroom and Spock's. When he turned around, he stopped in his tracks, swallowing the nausea threatening to rise in his stomach. "You've gotta be shitting me." He sighed softly, fear turning his guts to ice. He did not want to go up there, not after what they had seen last time. Besides, why would Spock even be up there?

Inching toward the open doorway to the third floor tower, Jim grasped the door handle and bent his head low to peer up the steps, shining his light up toward the bend in the stairs. He saw nothing and so he called in a timid voice he hated hearing from himself, "Spock?" He was met with more silence, the wind outside his only reply.

Forcing himself to move forward, Jim slowly crept up the steps, not understanding why he seemed drawn to this place, against his will and better judgement. He should just go back downstairs and check the living room again, Spock was probably back by now, from wherever he'd hared of to and Jim was missing his chance to pull a little rank here and be justified. He'd made an order and they had agreed to it, so why was Spock going off on his own...again?

"Spock?" He hissed now, some urge prompting him to keep quiet, even though he had to be the only one up here. Reaching with a shaking hand toward the door handle, he gripped the cold iron and nearly whipped his hand back at the sheer iciness of the metal. He tried to turn the handle, but it was stuck, probably frozen shut.

"Goddammit," he breathed, his breath fogging before his face as the temperature seemed to drop another ten degrees up here. "Spock?" The Vulcan should answer him, for fucks sake! Gripping the handle, Jim turned at the hip and thrust his shoulder into the door. Once, twice, three times before it gave with a sickening crack. Jim's stomach lurched as he all but tumbled into the room, like last time; but something caught at his legs and forced him to throw a hand out to the wall for balance. He dropped his pen light, sending shafts of glittering light in shards across the room. 

Snow drifts so deep they came up to Jim’s knees tangled him up as he scrambled for his light, blinking in the darkness and shivering as the wind seems to simply whip through this exposed place. The windows were bare and wide open, snow blowing in and sticking to his face and lips.

Shining his light toward the center of the room, Jim was struck by the sight before him, the cold seeming to pierce him through as shock seized his heart in an iron grip. "Spock..." he breathed, terror and shock locking his mind in one place, even as his body staggered forward through the snow drifts toward the limp body spread out on the floor.

There was blood, so much of it, green and staining the snow like dark ink in the low light, the smell clinging to the back of Jim's throat, making him gag and cough as he dropped to his knees in the snow, reaching for his First Officer and lover. Spock lay bereft of all his clothes, naked and slit open from the belly to the sternum with a single slash. His arms lay cast in a helpless open posture of defeat, his legs curled in with his last attempt at defense and as Jim reached out with a trembling hand to turn his face forward, the Vulcan's stoic face was set, almost as if he was sleeping, all expression cleared in death.

"Spock... Spock!" Jim sobbed, his hands trembling about Spock's face, torn between touching him and repulsed by the frigid temperature of his skin. What was left of the Vulcan's body had been scattered about him, the entrails and the organs harvested like some sick crop in offering while the ribcage lay empty, a barren cornucopia late to the devil's feast. "God.. no, no!" He rasped, choked by his tears and the growing sickness in his guts. "Please!" He cried, leaning over Spock's still form, sinking his hands into the snow beside his Vulcan partner, the tears on his face freezing in the hailstorm.

Fingers trembling, Jim reached for Spock one last time, hoping that by some miracle that he wasn’t gone, that he wasn’t dead and Jim's touch can reach him again, like it always did. Through everything they were always linked, always aware of one another, always in orbit about each other. "Please..." he whispered, his fingertips coming to rest against a plush lower lip, the same he had kissed only a week ago, in the quiet of their quarters and the solace of their home.

A piercing, keening shriek that could curdle blood ripped through the room and had Jim scrambling back on his feet in terror and shock again as Spock's eyes snapped open, transforming his face into a wild and manic scream with his mouth distorted and teeth snapping at Jim's fingertips. Jim screamed in fear, toppled back in the snow and scrambled away from the demonic figure possessing the Vulcan. Clawed hands scrabbled at his feet as he scurried away, managing to get up again and stumbling backward, unable to take his eyes off the abomination before him and yet desperately wanting to find the exit and flee. He lost his footing in the snow and as he turned his head, his eyes met the blackness of the stairwell as he tumbled out of the tower toward the landing. He screamed, in anger and terror and sorrow so deep it ran him through and he was falling, falling, falling-

_"Jim!"_

Hands shook Jim about the shoulders, shocking him out of one reality and into another, leaving behind a nightmare seeming so real and so vivid, it disoriented him. His ears were ringing from the noise in the room, the screams, was that Spock? It took Jim another moment to realize it was him screaming, his voice hoarse from the worst of it, his breath ragged and so fast he was close to passing out as his head grew dizzy and light as a feather. His eyes rolled and his legs turned to jelly as Spock’s face, alive and whole, swam into focus in front of him. He dropped, and yet arms cradled him so he did not hit the floor as he had thought he would.

"Jim,... Jim, can you hear me?" Spock's voice was worried, tense and highly alarmed; emotional. Jim had never heard this one, not like this... this was a new voice out of Spock.

"Mn..." Jim remembered to answer, but his throat hurt, sliced raw from his screams and it felt as if he might have swallowed gravel when he tried to speak.

"Jim, can you look at me, open your eyes." Spock's voice was commanding now, how boring, he had heard that one a lot... usually when he was doing something he shouldn't be.

"Why..." He sighed, whispering didn’t hurt so bad. Then he remembered, if he opened his eyes, what if it was dead Spock?

A hand shook him again, rattled him out of this dizzy haze, causing a sharp stab of pain at his temple. Jim winced, "Fuck..." he hissed, raising a heavy hand toward his head, only to find it trapped by another, Spock's fingers closing tight about his own.

"Jim, what happened, what were you doing up here?"

Spocks words made zero sense and Jim finally tried opening his eyes, squinting in the darkness, and hissing in pain when a bright light was shone in his eyes; Spock's penlight. He batted it away; annoyed, "Jesus, Spock, don't!"

Suddenly, Jim's worldview shifted as arms as strong as steel bands gripped him, wrapping him up and holding him tight against a very solid and real chest. Jim had the breath driven from him as he came to realize, his chin on Spock's shoulder, that the Vulcan was fiercely embracing him. Idly, he lifted a hand and rested it against Spock's shoulder blade, stunned into silence.

"I awoke, and you were gone, I searched for you and found you up here, staring at the open door to the tower... why were you up here?" Spock questioned, his breath hot and shivery against the side of Jim's neck.

"I... don't know, I was asleep. At least, I thought I was. There was this nightmare..." For the first time, Jim recognized where he was, laying in the middle of the hall a few feet from the now closed door leading up to the third floor tower. Had he really been up here, just standing there, staring into the stairwell like some zombie? He'd never sleepwalked a day in his life, he was too light of a sleeper for that, and yet how the hell had he gotten up here?

Before Jim could fully explain, Spock was drawing him to his feet, however he did so much too swiftly and Jim's legs buckled beneath him again, not having been fully recovered from the shock. Refusing to be carried, Spock draped one of Jim's arms across his shoulders and all but hefted him bodily down the hall and stairs to the living room where he deposited Jim on the couch.

"Explain," Spock demanded as he put another log on the fire, all the while not taking his eyes off Jim.

Jim recounted the terrible mess of his nightmare, and as he managed the last of it, felt sick again at the memories. Spock sat beside him and wrapped a blanket tightly about his shoulders, drawing him in toward his chest and staring into the flames in the fireplace. They were solemn and silent for a moment, as Spock let go of his fear and worry of a moment ago, and Jim lay to rest his mourning for the Spock of his nightmares.

Eventually, Spock murmured, "This house intends to kill us both." It was fact, and the both of them felt it as truth as it was said and Jim pursed his lips, nodding.

"We can't stay here," Jim agreed.

"Tomorrow, whether the treaty has been signed or not, we are to find a way back onto the ship. I will not risk another night here."

"Neither will I." Shaking his head, Jim reached down and gripped Spock's knee through the layers of blankets, too stunned to say more.

They didn’t sleep that night but kept each other awake with conversation and stories, taking up the whole couch again with their backs to the armrests and their feet co-mingling at the center under the heavy weight of all their blankets. After answering a trivia question from Spock incorrectly, Jim was elected as the next to rise and re-stoke the fire a little after two in the morning.

Shivering, Jim squatted by the fireplace, shoving a fresh log off their dwindling pile onto the mountain of ash and coal in the hearth. "Next time, I'm coming up with the question," he grumbled, blowing into his hands and holding them out toward the heat coming off the rekindled blaze.

"Perhaps it would be more fair if we were to simply take turns," Spock offered and Jim could hear the smugness in his tone, and it was enough to make him straighten and stalk toward the sofa, taking the bait.

"Oh yeah, more fair hm?" He smirked, folding his arms over his chest, "was that supposed to be some kind of insult?"

Spock blinked up at him, his head pillowed on one arm which was curled along the back of the sofa. "Why would I attempt to goad you? I am simply considering the fact that the longer you are awake, the more dull your neural receptors will become, thus making it increasingly difficult for you to focus and think."

"Right, right," Jim muttered, nodding slowly, narrowing his eyes playfully, "Don't forget, I was the king of all-nighters at the academy. I got all my best studying done in the middle of the night."

The Vulcan arched a smarmy brow at him, his lips pursed together; an expression Jim knew well and couldn’t help but find endearing. But before Spock could launch into his counter argument, Jim raised a hand, effectively cutting their banter short.

Spock shifted to sit up, his hand braced on the arm of the sofa but Jim forestalled him again, gripping his shoulder as he stared ahead at the window opposite. "Jim," Spock's voice was soft but tense as he sensed caution from his companion.

"Hush..." Jim murmured softly, his eyes narrowing, "we're being watched."

As Jim moved about the sofa at a slow and leisurely pace, he lifted his hands from his sides, pantomiming as if they were still in conversation as he said, in his normal speaking volume, "What, cat got your tongue, Mr. Spock?." But as he turned his back toward the window, he dropped his voice to a whisper only Spock would be able to hear, "The window, Spock."

Shifting around, Spock rested his arm against the back of the sofa once more, watching Jim, and also glancing past him toward the darkened window panes. The curtains were drawn back, but the view outside was rendered black with the night.

Jim turned, pushing his hands into his pockets, meandering toward the window as if he were just about to look out while he and Spock conversed, but when he searched for something else to say, he was at a loss to do so as a face peered back at him through one of the square window panes. Jim let out a short gasp, his heart leaping into his throat, not having expected to see anything at all. It wasn’t a rare occurrence that his gut instincts were wrong, but when they were this attuned, it sometimes shocked him.

"Fuck!" He yelped as dull blue eyes, surrounded by a pale face and wild hair stared unblinkingly at him through the glass. "Reeves?" Jim blurted in surprise, reaching out to grip the curtain to his right and yank it open further. His movement must have startled the Ensign, for he was gone in the blink of an eye, run off to God only knew where.

"Spock!" Whirling around, Jim nearly ran right into the Vulcan, as Spock had risen from the sofa at Jim's continued silence by the window and approached him from the side with the intent of getting a look out for himself. Gripping Spock by the arms, Jim whirled his First Officer around and gave him a push toward the foyer. "It's Reeves!"

Jim wondered, had they not heard the Ensign knock? Could Reeves not get to the door for some reason or another, or perhaps he couldn't even find the door in all this snow and storm? Amongst these thoughts, Jim and Spock scrambled into the foyer side-by-side and Jim yanked their heavier coats down off the hangers in the closet, tossing Spock his while yanking his own on. Without bothering to zip the coat up all the way, Jim was at the door and releasing the locks before Spock even had his coat on all the way.

"Reeves!" Jim shouted into the howling wind as he raced outside onto the front steps, now more than half covered by snow drifts. His voice was snatched away as he cried out again, calling for his crewman while protecting his face from the stinging needles of ice and pelting snow the wind whipped against him.

"Jim!" Spock called out, just as his Captain went leaping off into the deep snow, wading through its kneehigh depths. It slowed him down, enabling Spock to catch up in a few strides.

"Reeves!" Jim shouted again, his voice sounding as small as a squeak in a vast canyon. "I don't see him Spock! Where could he have gone so fast, in all this?!" He yelled as Spock reached him, and gripped the Vulcan's arms for balance against the maelstrom.

"Perhaps he was beamed back aboard?" Spock suggested, raising his voice over the noise.

"Not a chance in hell!" Jim shouted back, "Maybe he went around back!"

Spock turned, intending to hike through the snow around the house, but Jim gripped his arm and pulled him back, both of them stumbling toward the front door again. As they ascended the steps, a strong burst of wind swept the door shut with a resounding slam just as Jim got to it, his hands sliding down the rugged wood uselessly.

"Well that's just great," Jim gritted out, trying the handle and finding the door stuck shut. "It's locked!" He shouted over the wind, checking his pockets as he turned toward Spock, searching for the key. Spock fished it out of his own coat pocket while Jim shielded him with his body from the wind as the Vulcan unlocked the front door again and led the push inside.

Jim slammed the door shut behind them, leaning up against it and panting, his heart racing still and his body shivering and more wide-awake than he had been to begin with. Pushing his hood back off his head, he turned and looked at the latches on the door, frowning. "There's no way in hell this door could have just locked itself." He muttered, sliding the bolt into place, "someone would have had to lock it from the inside."

He shared a look with Spock, for it seemed they were adding more and more proof to the theory that this house was most definitely trying to do them in. "Haha," he crowed, raising his voice toward the empty house, looking upstairs as he crossed the foyer. "Nice try!" 

They crossed to the back of the house, checking the back door, Jim opening it to poke his head out into the night and calling one more time for Reeves. They got no response, and Jim ducked back inside to chew his lower lip and pace the kitchen floor as Spock set the kettle and shed his now soaking coat.

"What if he's out there somewhere, Spock? What if he can't find a way into the house and is just lost out there in the white and black of it? You know, we could barely see ourselves out there!" Jim stressed, pacing along the back of the kitchen and turning at the cellar door, making a circuit.

"He has another estimated twenty minutes before hypothermia will set in. If he cannot manage to be beamed back aboard the ship, we may have no other option than to wait until morning and make an attempt to find him, or contact the Enterprise," Spock intoned, his voice level and calm, even though his whole body was shivering from their stint in the snow.

"He could be dead by then!" Jim argued, sliding his hands back through his wet hair and shivering as icy droplets of water rolled down the back of his neck past the hem of his shirt. 

"Maybe if we tied a rope or something to the railing at the front stairs and searched in an arc across the front lawn-"

"Jim, I understand your concerns, but if we endeavored such a task, we too would risk hypothermia," Spock reminded him. "Our thermal devices are depleted, we are barely staying warm enough inside the house, Jim. If that was, indeed, Ensign Reeves, he will hopefully be returned to the ship."

Deflated by Spock's logic, Jim slumped forward, hands braced against the kitchen island and his head bowed. After a moment, during which the kettle began whistling, Jim said in a low voice, "I fucking saw him, Spock. He's out there... and we could be leaving him to die."

“As much as we wish to locate Ensign Reeves, we must remember the circumstances of this situation. If he were indeed out there, the Enterprise would have had to have beamed him down, and after our monitoring we both know that that is not possible. Therefore, either Ensign Reeves was a figment of your tired mind, or he would have had to have been transported down within the last few minutes."

Jim shot Spock a long, hard look, and before Spock could question the expression of intent on his Captain's face, Jim was out of the kitchen like a bat out of hell, returning seconds later with Spock's tricorder. He made a sweep of their surrounding area then his shoulders dipped and his face screwed up in frustration as he announced, "The electromagnetic field is still here!"

Slamming the device down onto the kitchen counter, he begrudgingly accepted a cup of hot tea from Spock as he heaved a long, angry sigh. "So if he didn't beam down..." he glanced at Spock, shaking his head. "I know what I saw, Spock. It was Reeves, there's no doubt in my mind."

Pursing his lips, Spock wrapped his hands around his hot mug, feeling even colder for the temperature change in his hands. "I have no other theories or hypothesis." He said, even as he peered down at the tricorder resting between them, noting aloud that there were no life signs apart from their own sensed by their equipment.

Grinding his teeth, Jim took a deep breath, controlling his emotions with a monstrous effort. "C'mon, let's get into some dry clothes before we freeze to death in these."

 

Many long, weary hours later, as the storm began to tame and the horizon became visible once more; Jim and Spock took their turns in the bathroom while guarding one another, dressing in their last sets of clean clothing. They packed up the rest of their few belongings, setting them by the front door in anticipation of leaving. As the storm faded away, Jim looked out the window in the dining room as Spock selected two ration packets of hot cereal for them, pouring boiling water over them in the kitchen.

"I think that storm alone dropped about seven new inches of snow last night," Jim observed into his refreshed mug of tea, leaning his hip up against the edge of the window frame. Amongst the unbroken blanket of white outside, Jim ran his gaze over the coated shrubs and trees with their branches hanging low and heavy with ice. Bringing his tea to his lips, he let the steam curl against his forehead, hoping that once they figured out a way to return to the ship they would see Ensign Reeves alive and well, never having been down here in the first place. Jim was hoping to whatever deity that would listen that last night had all been a mad raving of his imagination, but the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told him to expect otherwise; so when he noticed a flash of red out of the corner of his eye, his only response was to steel himself for the inevitable.

"Spock..." Setting his cup down, he took the two bowls of porridge from the Vulcan's hands as he entered the dining room, setting them aside, "we'll eat later. Get your shoes on..." He was solemn as he spoke, and when he looked back at Spock, hesitating on the threshold of the dining room, Jim knew his FIrst Officer had seen it too.

They donned their still damp overcoats and boots, picked up their tricorder and communicators before they exited through the back kitchen door and crunched through the deep snow. It took them ten arduous minutes to reach him, but when they finally made it to the edge of the tree line surrounding the backside of the house and Jim crouched and began to push snow aside, the stiff, blue-tinged form of Ensign Reeves was revealed.

Out of some senseless feeling of hope, Jim searched for a pulse, but there was none. Reeves' skin was firm and unrelenting under his fingertips. "Absolutely frozen..." Jim noted, disappointment and guilt weighing heavily in his words. Bracing his arms over his knees, he searched his crewman's uniform, only finding the standard communicator and phaser in their places at Reeves' belt. He tried the communicator, but it was apparently damaged and made no sound at his attempts.

Reeves was curled up against the trunk of a tree, half covered in drifts of snow with only his shoulder and half his chest exposed from Jim's digging. "He didn't have anything, just the clothes on his back, no means to save himself...no rocks around to heat up..." Jim observed grimly, looking about them.

"Jim," Spock bent low over the regrettable scene, his tricorder in hand and tilted to show Jim its readings. "There was nothing we could have done last night..."

"What?" Frowning, Jim read the data on display and gestured hopelessly, "what does that mean, Spock?"

"Given the levels of decay and rigor mortis of his body, adjusted for the extremely low temperature, I would have to say that Ensign Reeves has been dead between thirty-six to forty hours."

Standing up, Jim took the tricorder from Spock and noted the levels indicated, then stared down at his dead crewman sadly. "Three days?" He squinted, looking over at Spock, "But that can't be right, he checked in with you only yesterday..."

Spock grew still, poised in the process of shouldering the strap of the tricorder, his expression thoughtful and wary, "I...am not positive that that was Ensign Reeves."

"You said he was acting strange, what did you mean by that?"

"He made a comment...it did not seem something he would normally say. It was almost as if English was not his first language."

Jim's facial features turned blank even as his eyes roiled with anger and annoyance. He turned to the house behind them, staring up at it, his emotions turning his hands into fists at his sides. "I've had it with this goddamn place, Spock," he hissed, "first terrorizing us, then trying to kill us, and then impersonating one of my dead crewmen?"

Snatching his communicator from his belt, he whipped it open violently and fiddled uselessly with the tuning knobs until he’d tried every frequency, "And if the Enterprise failed to beam Reeves back up, why haven't I heard anything from them?!" He questioned; frustration surmounting.

"Because of the magnetic field," Spock supplied, wishing that fact were not true. Jim almost threw his communicator in his rage, but managed to control himself and shoved it back onto his belt with another violent gesture. When he turned back toward Ensign Reeves’ body, he seemed to have shrunk a full size as all his anger went out of him, and he was reminded instead of his feelings of guilt.

"Well, we can't just leave him here..." Jim sighed, reaching up to rub the back of his neck with one gloved hand.

"We can mark this location so he may be beamed back aboard the ship when we are successful in returning," Spock suggested as he made note of the coordinates on his tricorder. They trudged back into the house, Jim dragging wearily, brought down by the death of another crewmember.

No transport came to collect them that morning, even after their clandestine meeting with Tribal Leader Solarus. Jim ended up spending most of the morning pacing, checking his communicator over and over again until he finally spoke up early in the afternoon. "Do you think this was all just some elaborate plan to strand us here? They could be trying to steal our ship for all we know. Pose as us and mosey on up there. Hell, Spock, someone had to have impersonated Ensign Reeves, if they've done it once, they could do it again."

Spock, from his place by the fire warming himself, argued, "Even if they could impersonate us, James, they do not have any way to contact the ship. As soon as these storms began, their communications were also rendered inoperable; they cannot function through electromagnetic fields either."

Defeated, Jim slumped onto the sofa, leaning forward to brace his arms against his knees and scrubbing his hands over his face with a rasping sound against a day's growth of stubble. "What do we know then, Spock?"

"Shall I articulate the facts?"

"Yes, please, articulate away," Jim sighed, relaxing back into the couch. Upstairs, a door opened and slammed shut, making them both look sharply toward the stairs. No one emerged from the stairwell, and Jim swore under his breath before gesturing toward Spock to continue.

"We arrived on this planet one-hundred and eighty-four hours and fifty-two minutes ago. In that time frame, our environment has changed," Spock began. "When we arrived, the environment seemed welcoming, the weather was placid and was forecasted to remain that way from our meteorological data. These past few storm fronts have been volatile and have arrived quickly, and seem to have a strange electromagnetic component to them. When we arrived at this house, we were still able to reach the Enterprise and the transporters were functioning up to within twenty feet of the threshold of the home."

Jim frowned, considering. "That's right, the transporters couldn't lock onto any coordinates within or immediately around the house...even back then."

"Something to keep in mind," Spock agreed, "for that was strange in itself." Arching his brows, the Vulcan continued. "Also, might I add, an electromagnetic field of these proportions also seems strange. Even after the storms have passed, we are still encountering interference."

"You think there's a possibility that the storms didn't cause this interference?" Jim queried, glancing up at Spock with a hard look in his eyes.

"I believe that theory may be worth investigating."

Jim was up on his feet in a flash, pacing about the room as he pondered the information they possessed, and Spock watched him in silent and solid support; a sounding board for Jim's bursts of thought and energy. "See, I thought that the Cenlarians were too conniving, we underestimated them, simply because they're behind us in technology doesn't mean they haven't been able to develop other forms of defense!"

"The Cenlarians may be unaware of this..." Spock remarked, bringing Jim up short, stopping him mid-pace with his arms folded tightly across his chest.

"What do you mean?" He frowned.

"The source of our problems seem to stem from this property," Spock pointed out. "We had no issues contacting the ship until we settled into the house. The Cenlarians claim to fear the house, and by Tribal Leader Solarus' demeanor last night, I believe that is living proof that they do not like to come to this house."

"So, what, the _house_ is projecting some kind of electromagnetic field? You heard Solarus, this place may be more advanced than any of their own homes, but it's fairly old, built by their Late Supreme Leader," Jim argued, spreading his hands out from his sides in confusion.

"We do not know what this house is capable of, or the kinds of technology the Late Supreme Leader was working to develop before the Rackshan decided it did not fit the old ways," Spock retorted.

"But Spock, we've checked every goddamn room in this house for anything suspicious."

"We did, except for one." A gleam in Spock's eye had Jim's planned rebuttal dying on his lips, a slow smirk taking its place instead.

Leaping to his feet again, Jim snatched up his phaser. "C'mon, get yours too, I'm getting to the bottom of this right here and right now."

They moved through the back of the house until they came to the strange door, which opened to reveal the brick wall behind it. Jim let the door slam back against the wall as he stared at the bricks, reaching out to pry at a few that seemed loose, only to find them immoveable. He and Spock stepped back as far as the hall would allow them to and trained their weapons on the brick wall. "I hope this doesn't make the whole fucking place collapse on us..." Jim commented. "Fire!"

A high-pitched whine echoed through the house as they depressed their triggers, twin bolts of intense power shot out from their phasers, a barrage against the bricks, chipping away pieces and scattering dust. Jim held a hand up to shield his eyes, as did Spock as they continued to chip away at the brick, seemingly without any significant effect. "What the hell is going on here?" Jim huffed, wiping a bead of sweat off his chin with the back of his hand.

"It would seem we are being deflected," Spock responded, chunks of brick crunching under their feet as they push and pry at places in the wall.

"Dammit! There's gotta be something we can use around here, something we could knock this wall down with."

They search the house together, eventually winding up down in the cellar with their pen lights out. Jim found a shovel and Spock had located a heavy splitting mall balanced in a dusty corner, so, with their weapons of choice, they returned to the mess they had started.

Jim took a couple swings with the shovel, then switched to the mall after bending the shovel. He took some of his frustration out on the bricks before giving Spock a turn, stepping back as the Vulcan's long reach and superior strength produced loud, grinding bangs which resonated up and down the hallway. Jim was wiping his face with the edge of his shirt when he looked toward the kitchen, freezing with the cloth poised at the corner of his mouth when he saw the same woman from the night before.

She was translucent this time, but still just as grotesque and terrifying as before as she seemingly floated across the kitchen and down the hall toward them. Jim flailed a hand out to catch Spock on the shoulder, drawing his attention as he pointed. Spock dropped the splitting mall at his feet and half turned just as the creature's mouth opened and emitted a terrible scream. She sailed towards them and Jim picked up his bent shovel and lobbed it at her ethereal form, causing it to scatter into a grey mist that flowed past them and around the corner.

"Shit..." Jim breathed, "I don't think the house wants us to get in here..."

"The Rackshan..." Spock agreed. 

Jim prodded him with the back of his hand, "C'mon, we've gotta move faster, who knows what'll be next."

As Spock made a hole in the brick, Jim began to pull at them, tearing the wall down bit by bit as Spock then used the flat of the splitting mall to batter the rest to the floor. What they were left with was a jagged hole wide enough for them to pass through single file. Jim went first, letting his eyes adjust to the dark as Spock ducked in behind him, the mall still in his hands.

"Holy shit..." Jim gasped, wiping his brow on his sleeve.

All around them in a space the size of a small bathroom, multi-colored lights winked on and a low hum resonated beneath their feet as machinery kicked on. One dim light overhead flickered on, clicking with static. There were screens and terminals circled all around them and Jim leaned forward, squinting in the gloom at the script on buttons and levers. But it wasn’t in any language he can decipher, not displaying any similarities toward Klingon, Romulan, or even toward that of the 'Old Ones'.

"It is the interior of a ship..." Spock finally said from where he was peering at a data read out scrawling across a screen, seemingly on repeat, "and it appears to have been functioning this whole time."

Jim peered over Spock's shoulder at the data output, noting solar dates. "So... this thing is what's emitting that electromagnetic field out there? But Christ, it couldn't surround the entire planet."

"No, however, without a translating algorithm or any identifiable way to decipher these controls, I do not know how to end it's function."

"Well...there is one way," Jim confirmed, lifting his bent shovel.

Spock looked over his shoulder at him dubiously. "Jim, this could be extremely useful if we had the time to-"

"But we don't have the time, Spock." Turning, Jim brought the handle of his shovel down on a screen, an electrical shock spitting out toward him from the console as the screen cracked and the buttons dimmed.

_"Jim!"_

At Spock's warning, Jim turned in time to see a hand enter his field of view, just as he was lifted off his feet by an intense grip around his throat and slammed down against the multitude of panels and screens behind him. Something dug into his back, and as Jim got his bearings again, gasping past the icy fingers around his neck, he looked up and into the face of Ensign Reeves. His eyes went wide and his fingers gripped the young man's forearm while his shovel fell from the other.

Ensign Reeve's lip curled up into a snarl even as his form flickered and zapped with static. There was a small explosion of circuits to Jim's right and just as his lungs were beginning to burn he was released, and the image of Ensign Reeves winked out of existence.

Sitting on the floor gasping and coughing, Jim looked up through the acrid smelling smoke to see Spock standing with the splitting mall held in his hands, sparks still shooting out of a control panel he had just obliterated.

"Th-Thanks..." Jim rasped, taking Spock's proffered hand then reaching to rub his aching throat, "Why do they always go for the throat?" He grunted.

Spock surveyed the damage around them. "I believe we have ended the machines function."

"Only one way to find out I guess," Jim agreed, tugging his communicator off his utility belt and flicking it open. "Kirk to Enterprise, come in Enterprise."

"Enterprise, Scott here." The Scotsman’s familiar brogue couldn't have sounded sweeter and Jim sagged back against the edge of the panelling with a long sigh.

"God Scotty, is it ever good to hear you."

"Aye sir, and good ta hear you! We've been hailin' ya for two days!"

"There was a storm, Scotty...and the rest I'll explain later. Can you bring us back up to the ship?"

"Aye, and whatever else ya'll be needin'."

"Good, good... two to beam up, Scotty. Kirk out." Snapping his communicator shut, Jim had enough time to glance over at Spock in relief just before the transporter beam took hold, scattering them into sparkling particles of matter.

 

Jim then spent the better part of three hours in negotiations with the Federation Admiralty over subspace transmissions, he and Spock detained in the meeting room debriefing all the facts. By the time they were freed it was well past the end of Delta shift and as Jim made a detour for the bridge, Spock stopped him in the hall.

"Jim, perhaps we should transport the Cenlarian Council aboard to sign the treaty."

"And risk them seeing more technology they might develop too early on? I'd rather not be like the Captain of the U.S.S. Condor, thanks." Stepping into the turbolift, Spock joined him. "I won't make you go back down there Spock, but we've got to get that treaty signed. No more Cenlarian hospitality. We go down, sign, shake hands, beam back up. We've already wasted too much time here."

"I agree, however, perhaps we should inform them of the deception they were victims of in their past."

Spock posed an interesting and rather sticky proposition. After having some time to put his thoughts together, Jim realized that perhaps the Cenlarian 'Supreme Leader' hadn't actually been a Cenlarian all along. While the Cenlarians had been pining for a ship of their own to use in order to escape a haunted planet, how would they take the news that their precious Late Supreme Leader had had the technology right under their noses all along? If they had gotten their hands on those data banks secreted away inside that terrible house, they would have had the means to leave on their own.

"I think... that may be something for someone else to determine; I don't know how they might react," Jim decided, casting a grim faced look toward Spock as the turbolift doors slid open. Strolling onto the bridge, Jim wiped a hand down over the stubble along his cheeks and chin, feeling rough after their week long stint in what felt like the West Indies.

"Captain on the bridge," someone announced, causing the officers on deck to rise and turn toward him.

"As you were," Jim mumbled, sinking into the chair. "Report."

"All normal," Lieutenant Scott informed him. "She's in tip-top shape, sir, and roarin' to get gooin."

"Lieutenant." Jim addressed Uhura at her station, glancing toward the viewing screen, "hail the Cenlarian council."

"Yes, sir." Her crisp reply settled another blanket of normalcy over Jim's shoulders. This was home, this was normal; not ghosts and goblins of the past and present.

Tribal Leader Vexs' face appeared larger than life across the viewing screen, his eery features even paler in the high resolution image. His translucent eyes seemed fathomless, his white long hair tightly bound back from his face in an abundance of thin braids. "Greetings, Captain. I was unaware you were able to return to your ship, I am pleased."

"So am I," Jim remarked sardonically as he continues, "but how about that treaty? I had a second draft sent down to you."

"I have received it and reviewed it," Vex confirmed with a slow nod.

"Great, myself and a few of my fellow officers will be beaming down to go over it with you and sign on behalf of the Federation."

"Agreeable," Vex replied.

"Oh, and Supreme Leader," Jim felt a slow smile spread across his lips. "I don't think you'll have anything to fear in the future." With a quizzical glance from the Cenlarian Leader, Jim ended the transmission and got to his feet, strolling toward the turbolift, Spock falling in step beside him. Jim shot him a sly glance, "Oh, coming after all?"

"In the rare event you are once again trapped on that planet, I would be gratified knowing that I at least I might be there to ensure your sound piece of mind," Spock retorted, surprising a short bark of laughter out of Jim.

"Keep _me_ sane? Spock, I knew it couldn't have been ghosts...you were the one who brought up the supernatural, not me," he snorted, turning about in the turbolift as the doors slid shut behind them.

"I am curious, however," Spock questioned, thinking aloud with his hands tightly behind his back. "If not the supernatural...what _did_ you believe was happening in that house?"

Jim sniffed, casting an uncomfortable glance toward his Vulcan First Officer and rocking forward on his feet, "Holograms, Spock."

"Indeed?"

"Yup," Jim affirmed, looking away, but not before he noticed the high brow and the slight uptick of the lips from his Vulcan lover.

"Fascinating."

**Author's Note:**

> If there is anyone who doesn't want to post a comment here on AO3, I can be reached for comments at my tumblr [cuddlesjohn](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cuddlesjohn) or over my email **madkatter1000@gmail.com**. Thank you for the feedback guys!


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